Breathe
by EveningStorm
Summary: The Disk Operating System that GLaDOS resides in have been changing, something that Wheatley did in Portal 2 creates a dangerous virus that could use its unlimited supply for knowledge to take over the world. Who can save the Enrichment Center now? In all of this suspense, just remember to Breathe.
1. Prologue and Chapter 1

**This is a sequel to The Center, and I'd recommend you'd read it, but you don't have to, because it's only a totally awesome Wall-E and Portal 2 combo story that is totally awesome, if I haven't already established that. But by all means, ignore it. I'm kidding, of course. I'm just saying it's a good read, but only some of the events that happen in there are important in this story. You just have to have played/seen someone play Portal and Portal 2.**

**Also, if you're just longing for some extra things about this story, feel free to check out the forum in which I put it on. Go to walleforum . com, (without the spaces) and go down to Off Topic, Off Topic Works, Off Topic Fan Fictions, and there you will find Breathe.**

**Prologue**

The tiny white dots spun slowly and endlessly, they were everywhere, and so, so far away. The blue robot eye gazed out at them with a little turned, he thought that they looked so lonely, so far from each other and alone. It was pretty much silent besides the bickering of another robot that orbited quickly around him. There was a bit of debris that just randomly floated around in the abyss of nothing, just as the blue robot did.

He looked over at the white of the moon, blinking a few times, remembering the series of events that sent him out here.

"Tiny little Wheatley did this…" He muttered to himself, remembering how evil he had become when he was but into the Disk Operating System. He continued to swivel slightly. He glanced over at the blue, wonderful Earth. He had been on a mission for freedom… Well, he got freedom alright… He looked around a bit more. How long was he going to survive out here?

The other robot spun around Wheatley excitedly, looking around frantically at the darkness, the Earth, and the Moon that they were stuck between.

"Space, space! Need to see it all! Bah! bah! Bah-bah!" He rabbled.

Wheatley ignored him, he had been at it for hours, ever since they got out here. Wheatley took a little sigh, if only he could send at least a video to the Enrichment Center again, or maybe to that lady, what would he say if he did have a chance to tell her?

"I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do wish I could take it all back. And not just cause I'm stranded in space—"

"I'm in space." Space core cut in, of course.

Wheatley laughed slightly, "I know you are, mate. Yep… We're both in space…"

Space core orbited behind him, "SPAAAAAACE!" He screamed for the millionth time.

"Anyway…" Wheatley rolled his eye, concentrating on the words that he wanted to say, "You know, if I ever was to see her again, j'know what I'd say?—"

"I'm in space."

"—I'd say, 'I'm sorry. Sincerely.'" He nodded to himself , "'I am sorry I was bossy… And monstrous… And I am, genuinely sorry…"

"I'm in space."

"The end…" He finished, the Space core still spinning around him, bickering about space this and star that… Wheatley sighed, knowing that somehow, someway, he would have to get used to this torture.

Then he suddenly remembered something, "OH! OH! 'And then there's one more thing!'"

"THE STARS! SO MANY STARS!" Space screamed as loud as he could.

"SHUT UP!" Wheatley yelled at him, making him squirm in fear for a moment, then start screaming some more things. "AUUUUGH!" Wheatley growled in frustration, then with a sigh, he continued on, "'There is something that you need to know about that body… It's uhh… Really important that you get in there and shut down a little program thing that I was making…'"

"SPAACE!" Space screamed again, but Wheatley continued on, getting a bit more panicked, and really wishing that this _was_ a transmission that was meant to go to the lady in the Enrichment Center or to _Her_.

"'You see, I was storing something and uh… There is possibly a way that something could set it off and it will, you know… Uh… Break loose and take over the entire Earth in a matter of days… Maybe even create some mass destruction that could involve the world exploding and all…'" He glanced down at the Earth, "…Maybe it's a good thing that I'm out here, then…" He muttered to himself.

Shaking himself, he said, "'Yeah… So I think someone needs to get in there and fix things up…'"

He watched the Earth carefully, now worried about its near future and what will happen to everything. Then he noticed something strange about it, it seemed so big, unlike how everyone says that 'it's a small world'

This thought made him curious. Some other bickering other than Space caught his attention, he looked off to the side to see another morality core with a pink eye, as it too spun through the emptiness slowly.

"Fact: When ejected from the Moon, the Apollo 11 space ship fell into the gravity of the Earth, but the gravity from the Earth and Moon pulled at the ship in such a way, that it created a paradox that reversed time, and when they fell out of the pull of the Moon, it was over 194 years earlier, above the town of Lexington. When breaking free of the Moon's gravitational pull, it created a loud bang throughout space. The Americans and British misinterpreted this bang as gun fire, and so the American Revolutionary War began, this is what really caused the 'shot heard round the world'."

Wheatley listened to what the core had to say, but he didn't believe it. Maybe he wasn't the smartest, but at least Wheatley knew that sound could not travel through space, because it has no atmosphere to catch the sounds and—

Wheatley stopped suddenly, realizing that he was perfectly capable in hearing the Space core and the Fact core, and they were in space. He looked back and forth between the Moon and the Earth. They were right in between, but closer to the Earth rather than the Moon. This could only mean one thing: they were in the atmosphere of Earth. He listened to Space and Fact once more:

"Fact: 'This statement is false' is not a paradox at all. Most people think it means that the statement is false, but if the statement is false, then how do we know that the statement is false? Some people interpret this as a paradox, it in truth, it is not. There is no truth in this statement, meaning that the answer is false."

"Well here we are again, it's always space the sun-star. Remember when Mars hit the Earth? Oh how we got the Moon, it was such a great sight. Under the sun we sing all about the space!" Space sang a familiar tune that Wheatley slowly realized was a song that was playing on a screen that also floated out here, _She_ was singing it.

And he had been able to hear that too. Wheatley narrowed his eye, watching the Earth once more. He wiggled his handles, trying to see if he could make his way towards it. He was succeeding slowly, and Space and Fact fell into orbit with him. Did he seriously have that much of a gravity? He knew exactly what _She_ would say if she saw that they were orbiting him, "_Who's the fat one now?_"

He continued to wiggled more and more, he was going to continue on with this until he got into a deeper layer of the atmosphere. Or until he ran out of energy and shut down. It's a win-win no matter what. He was surrounded by the other cores, and they were only getting louder and louder. Wheatley was going for all or nothing, whatever that took.

He continued on with this for hours, days, months… Years. He wasn't quite sure how many years passed, and he wasn't sure how he was still able to do this, keeping in mind his energy. Probably he was given a huge boost of energy when he was in the Disk Operating System. But he was taking little breaks every so often. The two cores were so annoying, but he had to get through them, he just starting ignoring them.

He continued on, but he finally became worn out. He stopped and let himself roll a bit, he finally decided to listen to the other cores.

"Fact: We are almost in the Mesosphere, where gravity will drag down on anything that enters." Said Fact.

Hopefully he was telling the truth this time. Wheatley was a bit frustrated, he looked at the Moon, it seemed to be farther away than last time he took a break, but who knew if that was really true or not.

He looked back at Earth again, Space was behind him when he yelled, "Don't like space, don't like space…"

"FOR GODSAKE, MATE!" Wheatley screamed at him, he was going on about how great space was, and now he was saying that he didn't like it. He growled again, he thought to himself, _Stupid co—_

Suddenly Space slammed into Wheatley's back, and he went flying towards Earth. He screamed in surprised fear at first, and then he realized that he was getting closer and closer, and he started screaming in excitement.

"WHEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAA!" Space screamed from his side. Wheatley couldn't help but laugh, he was so ecstatic about this.

Until he caught on fire.

Then it wasn't so fun anymore…

**Chapter 1**

Alicia raced around the dirt that encircled her house, her red wagon trailing behind her. Although, it wasn't just strolling along nicely, pebbles caught under the wheels and made it launch up into the air several times from different angles. When her momentum was fast enough, she raced down the empty driveway and leaped up, jumping over the handle of the wagon and falling square into the wagon and riding it down the short driveway; until she hit a rough patch of dirt, where everything became rugged and jumpy. She screamed in joy. Ahead of her awaited her an old, broken down trampoline, and this time she may even make it all the way to it.

She slowly got to her feet, but stayed low, then at the right timing, she leaped off of the wagon and did a front flip onto the trampoline. She watched the black material, the brown dirt, the green grass, the small white house, the gray sky, and then the green grass again as she landed smoothly on her feet as the wagon continued underneath. From there, she leaped straight up as high as she could, then did a back flip and landed on her feet again. She folded her feet and landed on her bottom, gently coming to a stop and laughing the entire way.

She was such a daredevil, she liked it when her father was still at work and her mother was at her special school, and she was alone at home. Some say it was bad for a twelve-year-old girl to be home alone all the time after she got back from school. Although, she was very responsible, and did everything she needed to when she got home, like doing her homework and doing any chores that she needed to get done. Then she had about an hour left to do whatever she wanted.

Alicia laid herself out on the cool, black surface. Her heart pumped fast, and she took long, smooth breaths. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the excitement. She took a look at her rust, old watch that her mother found in one of the garbage cubes a while ago, her mother should be home soon, she better get the trampoline out of the driveway. She glanced off in the distance and down the road where the silhouette of the Axiom stood looming over the colony.

She rolled to the side and stood up on the ground, then she crouched down and grabbed the wagon from underneath, pulling it out and bringing it back to the garage. She pushed it into the corner carefully, keeping things organized.

As she started to make her way back to the trampoline, she heard some kind of shrill screeching coming from the sky. She looked up to see two rocks in the sky. She screamed, thinking that they were meteors, leaping out of the way and hid behind the wall of the garage.

As she braced herself from whatever was about to happen, it seemed like the screeching turned into screams. From her fierce curiosity, she looked around the corner as watched as the meteors got bigger, and bigger. Then she saw they were gray, but then she saw a flash of blue from one, and yellow from the other.

With a quick, confusing jumble of a bang, a stretch, and a spring; the strange orbs slammed into her trampoline, then recoiled and shot up into the air.

Alicia slowly moved out of her shelter, and watched the two orbs high in the air. They slowed and then came back down to the trampoline again. One hit it and the other smashed into that one and launched off at an awkward angle towards the grass.

The entire way, they were screaming.

The one that landed on the trampoline had a higher voice than the other, and it giggled in excitement as its bouncing slowed to a stop, and it slowly rolled off it. Alicia stood slowly and walked carefully over to the closer one. Meanwhile, the other wiggled on the ground, it sounded as if he was talking with a British accent.

"Hey… Hey… Space! We're not dead!" It laughed, and Alicia crouched down to look at the one with the yellow eye.

"I'm not in space! Goodbye space! Mwahahaa!" It screamed in joy, until it saw Alicia.

"Ooh, Space Friend, we're not alone." It looked at Alicia up and down, sort of calming down to the point that Alicia could examine it about closer. She pushed the bangs of her black hair behind her ears. The excited little ball was like a gray robotic sphere with handles in front; its eye was a vibrant yellow.

"Bloody hell, Space, what are you talking abou—" Alicia looked over to see the other one wobbling its handles to try facing her, then he stopped when he spotted her, "Oh… Hello." It said.

Alicia paused for a moment and watched the sphere, it looked as if they were both charred and burnt; they had a lot of scorch marks all over them. They were just robot eyes, but they seemed so… Human.

"H-Hello." Alicia replied cautiously.

"I'm Wheatley, that over there is… Well I don't know what his name is, but I just call him Space. Because he is… Well, _was_ obsessed with space. Actually, that's exactly where we came from, and I'm not sure how much time has passed and…" He faded off for a moment and looked off toward to sky and watched it suspiciously, then suddenly jerked back to attention and looked back at her. "What was I talking about…?"

"Space…?" Alicia tried reminding Wheatley.

"NO! NO SPACE! I _HATE_ SPACE!" Space yelled out, freaking out into a little spazz-attack.

"Summary of the story is that I need your help, you can start by picking me up." Wheatley ignored Space's struggle and wiggled a bit, trying to move a bit more upright, then he paused again, "…Please…ma'am?"

Confused on the whole situation, she blinked at him, "One moment, then." She grabbed Space's handles gently and lifted him. He was pretty heavy, but she could handle it. She pulled him out from under the trampoline that had saved his little robot life; then she placed him on top of it. Then she did the same for Wheatley.

"Thank you." He said, "You can't believe how thankful I am for what you've done for me, you know, with me, falling from the sky out of nowhere. I'm absolutely so thankful aaaaand do you know anything about some place called the Aperture Science Enrichment Center? It's really important that I get there, you know, as fast as possible." He started to babble about this Enrichment Center thing for a while as Alicia placed him on the trampoline with Space and started dragging it back the backyard.

As she did so, a the transport-pool slowly moved to the end of the driveway right before she was about to turn the corner of the house.

"…and uh—and uh… Who's that?" Wheatley asked as Space started to roll around the trampoline and giggle to himself mischievously.

"That's my mom." Alicia said, and she stopped pulling the trampoline and crawled on top of it, pushing the two spheres behind her. She shushed them as her mother stepped out from the white transporter.

"Hey mom!" She greeted her.

Her mother turned to Alicia and lifted her hands.

*Hello, Alicia. How was your day?* She motioned to her in sign language.

"My day was… Interesting…" Alicia replied aloud, giving a sly glance to the robots hiding behind her.

*Interesting? How so?* Her mother tilted her head as the transporter started to move again.

"Uhh…" She shifted a little bit, "Some ways."

*Are you hiding something?*

Alicia sighed, her mother was clever, and she never gave up over anything. She shifted aside and pulled Wheatley in front of her, facing his eye towards her.

"HEY! It's YOU! Boy, am I glad to see you! You haven't changed a bit, there! Ooh, what are the odds of this?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"I am… Honestly, genuinely, truly, perfectly… Sorry." Wheatley ended in a whisper. Alicia sat beside him in a chair, while he was propped up on the table, facing her mother. Behind him, Space was bickering to himself about how he hated space. Meanwhile, Wheatley had just wound out the tale of an amazing adventure of science, action, tragedy, and ending with an apology. Apparently, he tried to kill Alicia's mother several times, and it turned out into a tangled mess of everything and nothing. That everything and nothing being space.

*By now, I've forgiven you, Wheatley.* Her mother signed.

Wheatley nodded, and kind of tilted his eye, "Uh… Yeah, that's what I thought. Uh huh, I hear you loud and clear…" He stumbled on his words.

"You don't know what she said, do you?" Alicia frowned.

"No, no, I could understand it just perfe—yeah I have no clue…" He struggled to accept that he wasn't smart enough to read American Sign Language. Alicia rolled her eyes at her mother, then she explained to him what it meant.

"Ah, right. Thank you, uhh…" He stopped again, "Uhh… You know, I never learned your name…" Wheatley kind of fluttered his metal-lid and looked away from Alicia's mother, every so often shooting a tiny glance at her, urging her to tell him.

*C. H. E. L. L.* She spelled out.

"Her name is Chell." Alicia translated to him.

"Hmm… Chell… I'm sure your parents didn't name you th— … I mean… Uhh… There's a problem at the Enrichment Center, and that's why I tried all I could to get back here, as well as why I am so glad that I found you, because then you'll know where it is and how to get there and… You know how to get there, don't you?" Wheatley seemed to jump from one subject or another, but the remark about Chell's parents puzzled Alicia, her mother never talked about her parents, or anything about her past, for that matter. Once Alicia had to make a project about her family history and she asked her mother and she told her to just ask her father.

Alicia gave a sly glance at Wheatley as he waited impatiently for her to answer him, and then she looked her mother in the eyes and signed to her, *What is it about your past that you never want to talk about? Is he telling the truth about him doing that stuff to you?*

Chell watched her carefully, narrowing her eyes a little, she acted as if she was about to signal something back to her, when she turned to Wheatley and Space, *Translate this, Alicia: What exactly is this problem and why do they need my help?*

Alicia tilted her head at her mother in confusion, why didn't she want to talk about this? Although, knowing her mother, Alicia could basically count on her holding this secret to the death. With a sigh, she translated to Wheatley, "What is this problem and why do you need her to help you?"

"Well, uh… Let's just say that there was a system I helped to… Create storage for inside the Disk Operating System, and… You know, it kind of has some corrupted substances in there, and it may have a chance of breaking out and taking over the Enrichment Center… And uh… Possibly, you know, the world." He twitched his eye around uncomfortably, "I-I didn't want to bother you with all of this, but… You know, I don't feel like the world would really enjoy that."

Chell paused for a moment, *What do you mean, corrupted substances?*

Alicia translated it to Wheatley.

"You know, like that itch kind-of feeling, and this one strange, menacing feeling of…" He paused for a moment and narrowed his eye at Chell, "…of… What would be the word…"

"Space is the evil of existence…" Space hissed from a little bit behind Wheatley, sort of rolling around on the table.

"That's it. A sense of evil, coursing through the systems, making my mind all…" He tilted his eye around, trying to think of another word, "…Evil-like…?" He shook his eye, not pleased with his choice of words, but deciding to work with it anyway, "Thanks, Space."

"No! I am NOT Space! Space is evil! I am not evil, _you_ are evil!" Space argued with Wheatley.

Wheatley rolled his big blue eye behind his metal lids, "Yes, yes, I was. Things are better, now be quiet." Space grumbled to himself. Alicia chuckled under her breath at how these two 'Personality Cores' were interacting with each other, like an old married couple.

"This isn't funny, there, missy! This is serious, I don't know if the system has already taken over. It was something like Al… Al… Albany? ... No, no… Oh man, this is going to get on my nerves for a while… Ebony? No, it started with an 'A'… Al… Al—"

The sound of a loud creaking sound from the door cut Wheatley off, Alicia looked to see that it was her father.

"Daddy!" She cheered, jumping out of her chair and running over to him to give him a hug. He took her up in his big arms; then looked up at Chell with a big smile. Then he looked back and forth between the two, apparently he didn't notice Wheatley and Space on the table yet.

"Hey there, my Cutie Pies, How was your day?" He asked cheerfully.

*Wheatley's here.* Chell signed to him, her face blank, with no expression. Alicia nodded and grinned at her father.

*And he's got a British accent!* She signed to him, thinking that it was better that Wheatley not know about what they were talking about.

"H-Hello? Can, can I be part of this conversation? Maybe an introduction would be nice?" Wheatley wobbled himself a little bit in order to look around Chell and see who it was who had entered.

"Daddy, this is Wheatley, he fell out of the sky from space today. Oh yeah, and then Space is behind him, he used to really like outer space. Wheatley, Space, this is my daddy." Alicia chattered excitedly as she grabbed her father by the wrist and dragged him to the table. He was sort of resisting it, and he watched them with an uneasy stare, and then he looked at Alicia's mom.

*You mean, _the_ Wheatley? The one that tried to kill you a few times in the Enrichment Center?* He tried to hide what he was signing from Alicia, and both Chell and her noticed.

*Don't worry, he's here with good purpose, and not revenge. Also, Alicia knows, so don't worry.* Chell assured her husband openly.

"Hello… I'm still here…" Wheatley watched each of them carefully as he waited for them to speak aloud.

Chell told her husband to sit, and he cautiously kept an eye on the two cores as he sat in the chair next to Chell, her hand happened to be on the table, and he put his hand over hers, trying to keep her calm.

Alicia had a feeling something was wrong with this situation, her mother seemed emotionless and laid-back, even when Alicia could tell that there was something very deep to this story.

"Hey there, Wheatley. I'm Steve, Chell's husband, I've heard a lot about you." He said uneasily, putting out a hand and awkwardly shaking one of Wheatley's handles. It seemed almost like her father was the one that needed some calming, it seemed like he was deeply concerned with this situation, and he felt very uncomfortable with it.

Although, as Alicia made her way back to her seat, she saw her mother turn her hand and grab his tightly, then slyly hiding them under the table. She knew exactly what they were doing, they were going to talk just as people had to talk with Helen Keller, by doing a special kind of sign language into each others' palms, because Helen Keller had been unable to hear or see. They had just learned that recently in one of her school classes.

By now, Alicia was so curious about this, that she missed most of the discussion that Wheatley was having with them as she sat down. She liked his accent, there was only one boy with a British accent in her class, and it was only faint. But Wheatley just had this thing about talking and talking and talking. It did get annoying after while, it seemed to Alicia.

She finally started concentrating on the conversation when her parents started to talk to each other about how she insisted on going without him, and he refused to let her go alone.

Alicia's eyes widened, _adventure_!

Chell opened the small closest door, kneeling down and moving the rubble of clothes to open the hatch on the floor.

"Chell, don't do this, not without me, at least." Steve stood behind her, still trying to persuade her not to go.

*You need to stay here, and keep an eye on Alicia. I can't go back there with someone else. I'm just bringing Wheatley and Space in case I need them.* She motioned in between her opening the hatch and slipping her legs into it and falling into it. Steve crouched down to accommodate her. Then she turned to him and looked him in the eyes, *I don't want you getting hurt or lost. You don't understand, I've spent most of my life in there, and I've been to about most of the layers. Besides, GLaDOS has ways of tricking us to part or something, and if this 'Al-something' thing _does_ arise, there's no telling what it'll do.* She was about to disappear into the musty dark of the hidden compartment when Steve grasped her arm.

"You can't go back there. You don't know what GLaDOS will do to you if she finds out you came back when she told you never to come back." She looked him in the eyes again calmly. Although she perceived her feelings as calm and emotionless, she feared everything she owned. She knew that Steve was right, there was no telling what GLaDOS would do to her. There was a chance she would believe what Wheatley said and would delete the corruption as easily as she deleted Caroline's personality, and then kick her out again. There was also a chance that she would just decide that this would be a perfect opportunity to send her back into endless testing for the rest of her life. Or maybe she would just flat-out kill her for the sake of revenge.

Chell sighed, *I know, I know…* She started, Steve loosened his grip on her arm and she pulled it away and disappeared into the darkness. She clicked on the little lamp that was set up in there. She didn't have to crouch, because it was tall enough to accommodate her height. Cobwebs dangled from the ceiling, shimmering from the dim lighting.

There in the center of the hidden passage was the beloved gray cube, pink hearts adoring the sides, slightly faded from the dust that had gathered upon it, the dark scorches that were on it brought so many memories back to Chell, her chest began to hurt from her heart skipping a few beats.

She fell to her knees, her lungs quivering violently in a silent whimper, and she laid her head and arms on her wonderful Companion Cube. A few wet droplets fell from her eyes; she knew how much she would be giving up from this decision. It was possible that she may never return, and who knew what would become of her beloved husband and daughter if humanity fell because of a virus that she helped create.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she peeked to see Steve as he kneeled down beside her, pulling the hair from her face and placing it behind her ears and leaning against her lightly, rocking her gently back and forth. Chell couldn't help but turn her body and wrap her arms around him, hiding her damp, dirty face in his chest. Steve held her close, contacting his lips with her smooth, black hair.

"Don't to this to yourself…" He whispered to her.

She took a deep breath and pulled away slowly, *I have to.*

He looked her deep in her gray eyes, "Why?"

She broke her eye contact, looking down at the Companion Cube, *I don't know… I just…* She paused for a while, still examining the scorch marks that she had created, she just kept imagining GLaDOS. Whether she was in her old, unmoving robot form, her new one, or her potato form, something within her just felt like she needed to see her again.

*I just _have_ to.* Chell looked Steve in the eyes once more and he wiped her cheek, his eyes full of understanding.

"Promise me something." He started, getting to his feet slowly, and offering his hand to her, "Promise me that you will return."

She grabbed his hand and hauled herself to her feet, *Of course I will.*

From there, she pulled him towards her with the hand she still held, and when he collided softly with her body, she wrapped her arms around him in a huge embrace and he did the same.

When they let each other go, Chell walked past the Companion Cube and grabbed the supplies beyond it. This included her Aperture Science outfit, and the Long-Fall Boots that GLaDOS never took from her. When she had everything she had down there—besides the Companion Cube—then she went over to the open hatch, Steve placed his hands down as a step.

She placed everything above and crawled her way out, then let down her hand to help Steve out. He turned the light off before coming out after her. Chell dusted herself off, and Steve did the same. They happened to interlock their glaze, and without a word, Steve nodded slowly and left the room.

It was time to prepare to return to her first home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"You know how to get there, don't you? I mean, this isn't just going to be a nice little stroll through the front doors, you know. You know that, there is a slight little chance, that GLaDOS will definitely kill us… You know, like… Brutally and… Spontaneously…" Wheatley watched Chell carefully as she walked to the front of the wagon. Space waited behind him, his back was against Wheatley's. By now he was calmed down, looking down at the ground behind the red of the wagon, almost like he was depressed.

*Stop worrying about it, Wheatley, I know where to go.* She signed to him, and Steve translated it back to him. She nodded, kneeling down to adjust her foot inside of one of the Long-Fall Boots. When she looked up again, Wheatley was staring her down. Memories came back to her fast and furiously, claws extended and all. She looked away from him as she stood up once more, but then looked directly into Steve's eyes.

*Return to me.* He signed slowly to her, his eyes dark and ominous.

*Whatever it takes.* She replied, blinking slowly. Movement behind him caught her eye, and she saw Alicia looking through the window. Chell forced a nice smile onto her face as she waved to her daughter goodbye.

*Bye sweetie! Remember, mommy loves you!* Her lip quivered as she tried all she could to stay strong for her.

Alicia beamed brightly, *I love you too, mommy!*

Chell gave her a quick nod, then turned away, unable to hold up her smile any longer. Steve came to her front and embraced her once more. She held him tightly, breathing in his sweet warmth. Then he leaned close and whispered into her ear, "You will come back, I know you will." She nodded, feeling a little more confident, but she was still unable to hide the underlying doubt.

She looked back at him one last time, then she glanced at Wheatley, who she just then noticed that he had been talking. "—escaped from the Enrichment Center? I seriously was wondering how you got out?" He asked.

'Long story.' She mouthed to him, nodding slowly and grabbing the handle on the wagon. Chell tightened her grip on it immediately, running it through her palms. Just the feel of it made her mind shake with fear, although, it also seemed to dance with anxious anticipation.

Maybe she _wanted_ to run into GLaDOS again. Maybe she felt like the Enrichment Center was where she was truly meant to be. Maybe it was just the excitement of finally doing something grand and wonderful after years of boredom and peace. Did she wish for chaos, or did she just enjoy cleaning it back up? Perhaps she felt spoiled off of the adventure that she had to work through when she was at the Enrichment Center, or maybe she liked the tests that she had to be put through.

Whatever the reason that she wanted to go back to the Enrichment Center, she knew it was the right choice.

"—Hey. Hey. Hey. Chell. Hey. Hey. Chell. Cheeeell. Chell! CHELL! HEY, CHELL!" When Chell finally zoned back in, she finally realized that Wheatley was trying to get her attention. She flinched, then looked back down at him, finally breaking her gaze from the handle of the wagon that she was still holding tight in her hot, wet hands.

"Hey! Are we going to leave, you know, any time soon? I don't think you're getting any younger, and the Al…something system isn't constricting itself from whatever it can do to the Enrichment Center. Oh, and another thing, I have to ask you again, are you sure where it is? Are you really sure that you know the exact location in which the center is? Also, another good question would be, do you have a plan?"

His latest question startled her, and she contemplated over the idea for a while, *We'll come up with that on our way there, or just make it up as we go.* Steve translated to Wheatley what she signed.

"Oh! Oh, brilliant! You see, that is what I love most about you. Kind of tied with the ability to resolve things and press buttons, you see. Right up there with those two is your spontaneous attitude. You are waiting, silently, then suddenly something comes around and kills us while you're waiting, doesn't that sound wonderful." Wheatley was partially sarcastic, but then he started to panic, thinking over their initial plan of Chell, him, and Space just walking into the Enrichment Center and telling GLaDOS to delete that strange system.

Wheatley looked up at Steve, "Do _you_ have a plan? You know, because we kind of need that kind of thing." He glanced back at Chell, motioning with his eye at Steve, "Why can't we bring him along with us? At least I can understand him, and he probably doesn't have terrible brain dama—I mean… Sorry about that, kind of slipped out. Like that time when I called you a smelly huma—sorry… I'll just stop talking…"

Finally. Chell sighed, it was probably best that they were off to get there, it wouldn't just take a few minutes to get there, probably a few hours on foot, and there was no chance she was going to go hitch-hiking for a transporter-pool just to get a ton of people to get in trouble. If the corrupted system was already released, it could capture the innocent people and force them into tests or something.

"…So… Are we going to go soon? No rush, no rush…" Wheatley cut in again. He was never going to be quiet; that was for sure.

Chell watched him carefully for a moment, then looked over at Steve, then back again. She took a long breath before nodding slowly.

"Oh! Brilliant! It's about time, you know? I was waiting her pretty patiently for this. I mean, we better get going, we don't want to be late to the destruction of all mankind and all. So have you thought of any plans that may be of use to us in the near fu—"

"Oh will you just SHUT IT!" Steve finally had enough, Chell giggled silently, finally someone shut Wheatley up, "Geez, I have no idea how you're going to handle him, Chell." He rolled his eyes.

"Oh really? Is that what you think? Well fine! Remember when I told you that I wanted you to come with? I take that back, I don't want to see your face ever again." Wheatley fussed over everything and nothing.

Chell leaned the handle against her leg so she could sign to them, *We best be on our way now, before Wheatley comes up with something else to complain about.*

Wheatley watched her sign with suspicious curiosity as Steve chuckled to himself, trying to keep the atmosphere light, considering the dark that was to come, "Hey, hey hey! Are you guys talking about me? What did she say? Tell me, what did she just say to you?"

Steve sighed, avoiding Wheatley's questions and placing a hand on Chell's shoulder, *Good luck.*

Chell nodded to him, putting a hand on the hand that caressed her shoulder, *Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.*

With a little nod of acknowledgment from both of them, Chell grabbed the handle again, turning to go. As she looked down the road she was about to travel, she realized that it started to blur as her eyes weltered with tears.

She heard Space calling out his own goodbyes as she started to take her first step. She turned only for a moment to wave back at the house, and she took her first steps of a long journey… Followed by who knew what…

Her long strides took her farther and farther from her home, her family, and her newer life.

She heard Steve call out her name, like a bird in a cage, spreading its wings to fly. The old ways lay ahead, but she did not turn back.

She may never turn back…


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The old forest grew larger, the poor trees had been suffocated from proper carbon dioxide and clear sunlight, so all that seemed to remain were molded, crusty clumps of what used to be a beautiful forest. The familiar windowed box at the entrance tilted slightly, the asphalt was cracked enough to reveal a deep gash in the earth. Something that must have been caused after the disaster that Wheatley created when he was in control of the Enrichment Center.

It seemed like no one had come this way in years upon years, and thank goodness for that, too. She remembered when she first came out of the little outhouse-looking exit that GLaDOS kicked her out from, and in her wondering, she found the original entrance. She also remembered the time where she lay on the ground of the parking lot, falling unconscious as some kind of robot pulled her back in to put her into Suspension.

That had been her very first look at the outside world, the escape had been so close, and yet so far. Memories spun out like a spider web, twirling like a dust-devil in the deserted parking lot.

She carefully came to the edge of the gash, then kneeled down carefully, looking down the dark abyss below.

At first it seemed endless, like a little shard of light just barely illuminating the inner parts of the Enrichment Center. Perhaps this was the best way to get inside of it. But if she was to jump in, it didn't seem like there was a way to crawl her way back out, so she had to be sure that this dangerous crevice was truly the best way to get into there.

Chell looked up at the external building, looming darkly in the middle of the parking lot, it was also only a crumble of debris, burnt and beaten down. She examined the gash in front of her once more. She wanted to take a chance at this, she pushed the wagon a bit away from the edge, so Wheatley and Space didn't accidently move and make it fall into the pit.

Thinking about that just made her realize that Wheatley was still talking, Space and him were discussing something. They had been talking for so long, that she sort of blocked them out to the point of only hearing a little British-accented and high-pitched hum that came from behind her. Still not really paying attention to what he was saying, she looked over the horizon once again. Some strange feeling made her keep thinking that they were being watched, followed, and tracked. She watched the corpse of trees carefully, then looking off down the field in which they had come from. There was unsettling movements that seemed to appear in the corner of her eyes whenever she started to look away.

Suspicious with whatever she was—or at least, thought that she was—seeing, Chell knew that time was starting to edge on the reach of essence. She turned, sliding a leg carefully down the rugged crevice of earth, gripping a steady piece of asphalt in both hands as she descended slowly. She then kicked in a groove into the hard dirt below, making a ledge to stand on.

"So… So… You're just going to leave us here? Just… Nothing more? Leave us without a word?" Wheatley watched Chell carefully as she struggled to shift her other leg to slide down on the tiny ledge as well. When it was there, she leaned her weight against the edge and held tight with her arms, 'Hold on, don't move, I'll be right back' she mouthed slowly to him, trying what she could to sign it to him in a way he may understand.

"Earth! Why you disappear in earth, friend?" Space asked, somehow he had turned around just enough to see Chell as she clung onto the edge of what seemed like the edge of the Earth.

Chell rolled her eyes, then held up a finger to her lips, hoping they would both just shut up so that she could concentrate. She wasn't afraid of falling, it was just what lay at the bottom that worried her; if she wasn't prepared, who knew what was to come. When the two annoying little cores stopped talking and just watched her curiously, she returned to her climb.

She bent her knees a little, then used her fingers to scratch out a ledge to grab onto so she could lower herself at least a bit more.

"EARTH FRIEND! EARTH FRIEND!" Space yelled out from above, Chell automatically assumed he was just freaking out about her disappearing and him not being able to see her, but as long as Wheatley wasn't freaking out as well, then she felt there wasn't any real danger to be afraid of, so she continued to descend just a little more, trying to get into the dark enough to have her eyes adjust so she could see what was below.

"Ah!" Wheatley yelped in surprise at something above, sending Chell's senses to hyper-speed, but she dare look up, her eyes were almost adjusted and she _had_ to see what was down here. As she did so, she spotted a catwalk far below and next to that was a spiral of broken glass and framework. As Chell examined it even more carefully, she finally realized that she had been down there before. It was right next to the Turret Production Line.

_Perfect_ she thought to herself, already a plan starting to race through her mind. Wheatley was right when he claimed that she was 'brain-damaged like a fox.'

"Oh no, nononononNONONONOOO!" Wheatley started to scream, his voice suddenly started ringing in the deep crevice. Now that was not right. She suddenly looked up, her fingers quivering from the effort of still holding herself up while amending with her sudden movement.

The first thing she saw was the bright of the outside world, suddenly cut off with a sudden shadow. From the blur, she could quickly tell that whatever it was, it covered the entire width of the crevice. She flinched, ducking her head into her shoulder as soil cascaded down the hole and jumbled onto her, the sudden movement making the grip she had with her fingers slip.

She struggled to keep a hold of the wall, but the dirt of her ledge crumbled beneath her feet. Flailing, she caught onto some kind of object with one of her hands. She kept a grip on it tightly, and she looked up again. By the time she did, something hard slammed into her back hard enough to knock all of the breath out of her, crushing her between it and the wall. He head still pointed up, she realized that the shadow was gone, but the screams of Wheatley and Space still echoed violently though the pit.

The thing that had slammed into her back paused for only a moment, trapped between her back and the opposite wall, then the focus of the screams fell with a metal-to-metal crash on top of it, knocking it from its lodged place, and making it fall once more.

Still trying to catch a breath again, Chell could barely concentrate on her own movements, and her grip loosened on the ledge, and she fell.

Thoroughly weakened, Chell could barely cling onto consciousness, but she fought above the impulse and took a deep breath.

Her brain supplied with the right amount of oxygen, it started to pound with adrenaline once more, waking her senses up once more. With this new burst of energy, she spun so that she would land with her Long Fall Boots instead of her spine, then looked down to examine the situation, realizing that the thing that hit her was actually the wagon, and Wheatley and Space were the ones who dislodged it from its uncomfortable place.

Looking beyond that, she could see the catwalk getting closer and closer. Hoping she had enough time, Chell spun in the air again, so her arms were outstretched downwards, reaching for Wheatley and Space.

Her finger just barely poked at Wheatley's handle, but with one big stretch of her shoulder, she was able to grab it. As she frantically reached for Space's handle, she put all of her strength into throwing Wheatley as hard as she could against gravity to throw him towards her feet. When she did, she also stretched down enough to grab Space's handle.

The catwalk was only a second away, but she forced her legs downwards as hard as she could, reaching out to catch Wheatley in one hand, and yanking Space high enough to counteract gravity as they hit the metal of the catwalk with an enormous thud.

"OOhhh… Ooh, I thought I was a sure gonner, there. Wooh… So glad you were already down here, you wouldn't believe what was happening up there!" Wheatley started talking as soon as the echo of their landing; and the crash of the wagon as it continued tumbling down the dark below, came to a dim halt. Space started laughing excitedly, screaming out in pure thrill about every little detail of what he had just gone through. Any chance at trying to make it into the Enrichment Center in secret was probably impossible.

It was completely dark; the only light was the tiny opening from above. Chell was going to need Wheatley to light the way, if he dared to do so, but for the moment he was probably going to be like Space and explain to her, with sound effects and all, about what they were feeling and what happened with them during their fall. Chell wasn't one to talk, especially now, besides, she's been through for exciting things than that.

As Wheatley and Space continued to explain what had happened as loudly as they could, as to try speaking over the other, Chell decided one way was more hopeful than the other way. She blocked out the two annoying little cores from her hearing, but making sure to keep an ear out for anything else that was of interest.

She slid Space's handle onto her arm, as to carry him and yet have her hands free, meanwhile placing Wheatley on the metal of the catwalk for a moment, trying to get him to look at her as she knelt by his side, *Flashlight* she signed slowly, mouthing it as well, trying to get him to understand, *F. L. A. S. H. L. I. G. H. T.* she signed out the letters even slowly, mouthing it again.

"Flash-pipe?" He asked, Chell shook her head, and repeated her process, trying to be patient with him because it was already hard to see in the first place. He narrowed his eye at her, "Flashlight? OH! Flashlight! Thank you, thanks for reminding me!" Without warning, the light behind his big blue eye came on, blasting her own eyes with the sudden light. She closed them immediately, turning Wheatley around and standing up so she was holding one of his handles and facing it away from her, to use him like a lantern.

Chell looked down each end of the catwalk, one of the sides was falling apart, she was so thankful that it had been able to hold her up as it did. As long as it was stable enough for that, she was content. She sighed, accepting that this was the only way to go from here. Her mind reeled with emotions even as it continued trying to calm itself down from all of the excitement.

She finally turned to the other side and started walking. Still not sure what was to come, and also still not sure what she thought of it.

Her mind relaxing, she opened herself to listen to whatever Wheatley was talking about, "…and then suddenly I was thrown the opposite direction, going up instead of falling down. I thought I was going insane, but then you caught me again and so I assumed that you had thrown me and so here I am and—oh yeah, by the way, we were being followed up on the surface."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Chell stiffened, someone… Following them? She stopped dead, her eyes widened. Did Steve follow her here so that he could make sure she was safe? She looked up the crevice of light, it was harder to see from an angle, but she saw no shadows that may indicate that he was looming over it, making sure that she made it down alright. If he _had_ followed them, he better not come in after her, especially from that way, because if he fell, he would be dead. She wanted to yell his name, but of course, she was a mute, forever unable to speak.

She knew that this was too complicated of a situation to sign out to Wheatley, so he could yell and get him to go away, so that was not going to happen. She opened her mouth, trying to say something, _anything_, but nothing could come out. She sighed, knowing that they would be unable to sit here and wait to see what was going on up there; they had to get moving.

When she turned her attention once more to the journey ahead, she realized that Wheatley wasn't talking—a total surprise. Although, Space was still blabbering about the fall.

She started to move, leaping off of the catwalk to land on the solid flooring. She noticed a strange arrangement of light on the floor as she approached the other side of the hallway. When she turned to her left, she saw that the doors that usually opened at her presence were both broken down, partly crushed by the almost self-destruction of the facility. She may have to squeeze between them, because they were slightly jarred enough for an open space between it, caused by the half-broken flooring, leading down to a bottomless pit. The separate parts of the doors were completely unattached, the archways cracked, making the right door slope down from the left side, and the light that was usually there wasn't on.

The floor shifted beneath her weight, and she slowly and carefully made her way to the broken door.

"That looks like a nasty fall down there, be careful, be careful, remember, I'm not on a management rail to keep me from falling." Wheatley sounded concerned about the flooring, the light from behind his eye flickered back and forth, watching the huge opening in the floor most of the time, but Chell wasn't that worried, she was confident that it was going to hold them up just fine.

"Just… Just don't move your weight around too much." Chell frowned at his comment, he was hinting at her that she was fat. Irritated, she grasped him tightly with only one hand, then turned him to dangle over the opening, he scrabbled in the air, frantically screaming out his apologies, "NO! NO! PLEASE! I DIDN'T MEAN IT! I'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRYI'MSORRY!"

Fully satisfied, she returned him to her arms, holding him tight, knowing how important he was right then. Without him, she may get stuck, she may need him to open a panel, also so that they can both explain to GLaDOS what was going on. Thinking about Wheatley's importance, she wondered for a moment why she brought Space along. Meanwhile, Space was laughing menacingly as Wheatley made gasping sounds, like he was catching his breath.

"Space Friend is afraid of space." Space snickered.

Chell smiled, oh yeah, that's why.

Focusing back at the real objective, she knelt down, trying to slide a foot through the crack in the door. At least that worked, but as she tested to see if Wheatley and Space would fit through, they weren't even close. She narrowed her eyes, thinking over what they should do. She ignored Wheatley's complaints about what she just did to him; they didn't matter at the moment. She forgot that he wasn't going to let this go for a while now.

She blurred him out as she examined the door, the jagged vertical opening was going to be difficult to get through with that had a rounded in-cove and alcove. Maybe she could try and pry them apart; she was pretty strong, after all, she had been instructed to exercise more after she made her way back to society, because her muscles sort of deteriorated during Suspension.

She turned back to where the broken glass and spiral frame were and placed Wheatley and Space face down so that if they floor gave way or tilted in any way, they wouldn't just roll neatly down the floor and into the nothing. That would not be good.

She didn't have to explain herself, because she knew that they would never understand, no matter how many times she signed it to them. She turned back, making her way carefully back to the door, then she took a steady stance, grabbing the top of the left side and dragging it down, remembering that the doors turned horizontal before they opened. It was hard at first, but once it moved just a tiny bit.

To Chell's surprise, the light clicked on green and it struggled to mechanically open the door, but the other side wasn't activating, so it started jamming up against it, and its power started to crack the archway. From there, it started transferring the bad change in weight wrong, making the ceiling receive the pressure.

Knowing where this was going, Chell sprinted to the other side of the hallway, just barely getting out of the way before the ceiling and walls started to crumble. She leaped out of the way as the other half of the hallway fell into the abyss, the cracking of the walls were so loud, it echoed all the way down the pit, and it made the while hall rumble as Chell watched it fall as she lay on the ground.

When the last of it fell and everything settled, she stood cautiously, hoping the rest of it would hold up as she made her way over there to inspect the damage. What was left was a small cleft leading against the wall to the other side, where the other door was. It was only about a meter of room. The first door had been completely torn from the wall, including the whole archway, and the other door was only half of one, still turned horizontally.

Risky, but good enough, and at least they had more light now.

"What happened over there? I-I can't see, I'm just getting blinded by my own light, waiting for you to pick me up. So… Pick me up… Pleeeaase?" Wheatley complained, as always.

Looking their next obstacle over one more time, she turned over to Wheatley and Space, going over there to grab them. While Wheatley was still face down, kept in place by his handles; Space, on the other hand, had found a way to roll himself to face the action.

"AAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!" He screamed in laughter and excitement, "SO MUCH ACTION! SO MUCH FUN!" His yellow eye bounced around crazily, like dancing to the joy of the adventure. Then he paused, "…Space no fun… _EARTH_ FUN!" Chell rolled her eyes; then grabbed both of them, one in each hand, she went back over to the broken hallway.

When Wheatley saw what was to become of their path, he cringed a little bit, "Did I do that? You know, from my insanity when I was in charge? …I'm sorry…" What surprised her was that he actually did sound like he felt guilty about it. It was either that, or he just didn't want her to dangle him over the bottomless pit again.

Being the biggest daredevil in the world, Chell took a seat at the edge of the broken flooring, Wheatley and Space having the biggest panic attacks of their little robot lives. As frightened as Chell was, she knew that this was the only way she could get the perfect angle to throw the two spheres all the way passed the half door and right into the stable hallway leading to the Turret Redemption Line Office.

"WHAT ARE YOU [i]_CRAZY_[/i]? OH YEAH, I FORGOT, YOU'RE BRAIN DAMAGED! YOU'RE BRAIN DAMAGED TO THE POINT THAT YOU FEEL THAT JUMPING OFF THIS LEDGE IS THE BEST OPTION, OUT OF _ALL_ THE POSSIBLE OPTIAAAAAAHHH!" Wheatley screamed as loud as he could as Chell threw him right at the perfect angle to crash him against the wall of the hallway, bouncing off it and crashing into the other side, and then the floor. Or, at least that's what it sounded like, Chell couldn't truly see it.

Besides, she was busy at the moment, her movements of throwing him like that threw off her balance on the ledge, and it started to crumble a bit. As fast and accurately as she could, she threw Space the same way; just in time, she slipped off the edge.

She spun, grasping a hold to the edge, even though that started to disintegrate under her fingers. Using all of her strength, she pulled herself up, scrambling away from the edge, spraying parts of it off behind her as her feet flailed around to get a grip. When she was finally safe, she lay on her back, trying to catch her breath so she could finally complete the journey ahead.

After her heart beat calmed down, she stood, dusted herself off, and turned to her next obstacle. She sighed, now was as good a time as ever to go across that tiny ledge. After all the courage that she had summed up in the last few minutes, she was started to get tired of trying to be the tough one.

Chell looked over the little ledge just to make sure there wasn't anything that would trip her, but seeing that it was fine, she took her first step onto it. She had her feet faced toward the door, she didn't want to risk the back spring of her Long Fall Boots to push the front of her foot off the edge. She had one arm sprawled in front of her against the wall, and her other arm was behind her, also hugging the wall. After her first step, she couldn't handle it; she closed her eyes as she took cautious, slow steps. She trusted her feet to get her to safety.

It seemed like only a second later, she had crossed all the way. Relieved, she walked calmly to the half door, grabbing onto it and swinging around it to the other side, then quickly making her way over to Wheatley and Space.

"You survived, Earth Friend!" Space said excitedly.

"If I had arms, I would beat the bloody brains from your head for throwing me like that." Wheatley hissed, Chell leaned over and picked him up, giving him a stern look, "I mean, uh…" She stopped and thought about it for a bit, then looked down at the floor, ashamed, "…I'm sorry… I wouldn't dare hit you… That was all for the best, I guess… Best to keep on moving. We need to try and get to GLaDOS soon, we don't want her finding us first."

"Oh, you're not going anywhere if I have anything to say about it." The familiar, deadly voice came on a speaker coming from the office ahead. Chell's ears bled to hear that voice since she wasn't expecting it. The color drained from her face and she felt like she was going to faint, but then she shook it off.

Wheatley started to freak out right away, knowing that he was going to be in huge trouble if GLaDOS got a hold of him.

"Why, uh… GLaDOS! Good to hear you again, funny, actually, we were on our way over to you!" He tried to cover himself.

Chell grabbed Space and walked over to the desk, placing Wheatley and Space down and sitting down as quietly as she could in one of the chairs.

"You know, I half wished that you'd find your way back here, do you want to take a wild gander on why?" GLaDOS's voice was dark and cold as ice as she used her acid-harsh words to burn into Chell's heart, even though it wasn't directed to her.

"Uh, haha… Uhm… Maybe it's because you missed me…?" Wheatley tried to stay proper, struggling to hold back the fear in his voice.

"No, you stupid mongrel of an idiot. I wanted to seek my fully-deserved re—on second thought, I'll keep it a surprise for now. I am actually curious, how did you get back in? Is there some idiot who brought you in here or something?"

"HI!" Space just _had_ to scream, "I remember you! You picked me out and hung me up-side-down for my Earth Friend to plug me into… Into…" Space looked over at Wheatley, "The… The enemy…" From there, he lost all excitement, staring Wheatley down, his eye open wide.

So, he _finally_ realized that Wheatley was the one in the Disk Operating System, figures.

"Okay, okay, come one Space, it wasn't my fault! I was put into the body and I—" Wheatley tried to explain to him, but GLaDOS cut him off.

"Shut up, or I'll show you a pain you could never imagine."

"Shutting up." He replied quickly.

"Earth Friend? Ch-…" GLaDOS stopped herself, and Chell stiffened, "Ah… I see..." Chell stayed as still as she could, her breath caught in her lungs and chills ran up and down her body.

"You were on your way to me, weren't you?" GLaDOS sounded strangely interested, "Here, let me help you with that." A cold grin sliced across her voice, and Chell took a deep breath, and held it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The fear of neurotoxin, one of the darkest things that Chell had to handle. The thick air, the sour smell, and the foul taste. Chell kept an eye on the walls, watching for any kind of neurotoxin emitter of some kind. She looked past the broken window that overlooked the Turret Redemption Line,

The floor fell out from under her feet, she gasped in surprise, and Wheatley and Space yelled as the desk also gave way and they dropped with Chell.

Chell took a stance, ready for the bottom, wherever it was or when it was coming. It was pure darkness from all around, all she could see was the blue and yellow of her core friends' eyes. She should have guessed that GLaDOS would pull such a thing. Although, she also knew that GLaDOS probably wouldn't drop her all the way down to the old part of the Aperture Science Center.

Time passed, and Space decided that there wasn't much to scream about, although Wheatley was still showing off how masculine that his built-in personality was—screaming as loud as he could and not taking a break.

As Chell watched what was going on below them, she realized that there was light at the very end, but she didn't have a good feeling about it, remembering last time that she fell into some kind of trap that GLaDOS had created. Wheatley made a gasping sound, as if trying to breathe like a human would; then he continued to scream.

Chell narrowed her eyes at the light below, trying to make out what was down there. Slowly, she started to make out the figures of none other than…

…Nothingness.

An endless pit. Of course. Chell sighed, at least it was better than neurotoxin. The opening got bigger and bigger, and before they exited the huge hole, Chell felt the vacuum of a glass tube as it moved quickly to catch them.

She was the first one in, then the two cores, they continued to go down the tube, then it curved one way, then the other, then back again, going up and down and back and forth. Chell kept her arms tight to her sides and her ankles hooked a little to keep them together so that she could fit through the tubing better. Sure, she should be watching where she was going, but in the end, it didn't matter.

What mattered was whatever GLaDOS was going to put them through. Wheatley finally gave up on his screaming, and instead he stayed silent. For only a moment, though.

"What do you think she is going to do to us? I'm thinking she's going to try to kill me, ah, that would be the worst possible thing. I knew I shouldn't have struggled my way back onto Earth. I knew it, I knew it."

"I miss space." Space said.

Wheatley groaned in frustration, "MAKE UP YOUR MIND, MATE! First you love space, then you hate space, then you love it again! JUST MAKE UP YOUR BLOODY MIND!"

"This space small… Space so big…"

The tube angled downward, and it opened up to an open area, Chell slammed into the floor hard, she landed in a kneeling position, her eyes closed shut from the shock. The two cores crashed down behind her. Wheatley hissed out a complaint about how much that just hurt. Even before she opened her eyes, Chell knew exactly where they were.

She looked at the floor for a moment, and the familiar shadow made her heart sink. GLaDOS loomed high above her, her body moving smoothly back and forth in a slow rhythm. Like a snake, luring its prey to get close enough for the kill.

Chell finally got the courage to stand, ready to face GLaDOS with passionate strength. Determination burned in her eyes, but inside she was mostly hoping that of all the things GLaDOS had in her 'unlimited capacity for knowledge,' that one of them was an understanding for sign language.

"I can't believe that you all had the guts to show your face around here again." GLaDOS hissed, her harsh yellow eye burning away Chell's skin. Before Chell was able to reply, something grabbed her around the abdomen, yanking her down to the floor, then dragging her backwards to press up hard against the wall. The sharp squeal of Wheatley and Space told her that they were having the same thing happen to them, too.

"Didn't I tell you never to come back?" GLaDOS tilted her head slightly, the panels of the dome opened to reveal a little blue light at each one. It was almost like she was curious, but also confused about her reappearance. Perhaps she thought that is didn't seem like it was enough for Chell that GLaDOS tried to kill her several times and then Wheatley tried to kill her too, she needed the thrill of a near-death experience again.

"And you," GLaDOS turned to Wheatley, "how dare you think that I'd forgive you. After everything that you did to—" GLaDOS stopped, recoiling up just a tiny bit, as if surprised by something.

"Oh… We have a new visitor." She turned her head to the wall at her side. The panels shifted and moved out of the way, revealing a little figure sitting there watching. It freaked out when it realized it wasn't in a cover anymore, and rolled quickly behind some more panels. Those ones moved as well, but the figure wasn't there, GLaDOS opened all the three bottom panels of the dome, hoping to find the mysterious figure.

Unable to, GLaDOS controlled all of the panels, except for the ones behind Chell and the two cores, to protrude and shake. There, the figure clung to one of the arms of the panels, struggling to keep a grip. All the other panels closed down again as a claw came down from the top of the dome and grabbed it tightly, yanking it off of its perch; that one panel returned to its position.

Chell's jaw dropped as GLaDOS brought the dark figure closer, shedding light onto it enough to find out what it really was.

Eyes wide, arms pinned to her sides, and mouth opened wide in a silent scream, Alicia flailed her legs that dangled from below the claw's grasp. Chell's daughter hung in the balance between life and death at this very moment. Chell closed her mouth and tried to be calm, if she played her cards right, GLaDOS would let them go, delete the corrupted systems, and let them go on their way.

Still, her heart raced and she kept a close eye on her daughter as she hung in the balance, she really hoped that Alicia didn't give away who she really w—

"HEY! Hey Alicia, what are you doing here? Your mother didn't want you to come with!" Of course Wheatley had to blow their cover.

"Mother?" GLaDOS asked. When she looked back at Chell, her whole body suddenly twitched dramatically. For a moment she seemed to tighten, as if she were a human about to sneeze; with another horrific twitch, she wound up tighter, quivering slightly. Then suddenly relaxed to the point where the claw dropped Alicia, and the hard bands that held Chell and the cores down loosened and fell away. The panels that formed the dome around the room dropped and hung, jagged, but leaving big openings between each other. GLaDOS herself drooped down, just as she had when Chell had pressed the Stalemate Resolution Button many years ago.

"Oh no…" Wheatley murmured from beside her, Chell quickly rose up and sprinted for Alicia, who lay on the ground limp as dead. Chell pulled her up onto her lap, and she patted her cheek, trying to get her to wake up. When her eyes flickered open, Chell made a quick sigh and held her close.

*You need to leave, hide, or just get out of here. It's not safe for you. Something bad is about to happen and you shouldn't be here.* Chell signed quickly to her daughter.

"What is it, mother?" Alicia asked innocently.

*I'll explain later, just go hide behind the panels, I'll get you out when the time comes.* Just as she finished signing and she stood and pulled Alicia up and shoved her towards the wall, GLaDOS had another massive shudder, and Chell could barely hear some kind of light yelling coming from her.

*GO!* Chell signed to Alicia as she came up to the hanging head of GLaDOS.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, love." Wheatley warned her from where he lay on the floor, but what did he know? He knew as much as she did on what was going on and why.

~No, no! I won't let you take over, ALBANE!~ The voice seemed to say.

~A proper protocol must be put into order.~ Came a darker, colder version of GLaDOS's voice.

~Stand down! New protocol orders you to stand down!~

With this, GLaDOS suffered another dangerous-looking seizure, followed by a series of spasms that rattled through her entire body. Whatever was going on in that body was not going to end well. Chell kept a safe distance from her, so she couldn't get hit when she twitched again.

She continued convulsing like that for a while, until she had a huge tremor that kept her tightened up like that for a while, and then she fell, drooping once more as if someone had shut her down. Chell waited there for about a minute or so, her head tilted as she examined GLaDOS's limp, hanging body. Perhaps Alicia had found the control room for GLaDOS.

Chell took a step forward, reaching a hand out to try and touch the white of GLaDOS's head. Centimeters from touching the surface, the head suddenly jerked up, making Chell recoil her hand back.

Narrowed and sizzling with hatred, GLaDOS fixed her glare on Chell with an eye the color of blood.

"Don't touch me you worthless piece of bone and flesh." GLaDOS growled, Chell swallowed with difficulty and she tried with all of her might to keep her eyes from showing the fear and despair that she was truly feeling inside.

"ALBANE! That's what it was called, I just remembered, just know. It was called ALBANE!" Wheatley called, Chell looked over at him, knowing that that was not really relevant at the moment. Also so that she could break the eye contact between her and GLaDOS's red eye.

Before she could do much more than that, the claw came back down and snatched her up, clutching her tightly around the abdomen, her arms trapped between her body and the claw.

It brought her so close to GLaDOS's face, that she could feel the heat from the LED eye as it stared into her eyes, "So you're the one who caused _all_ of my problems."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The grip around Chell's torso tightened, her face started to numb as her oxygen drained from her lungs, her heart pounded and her brain throbbed. Her throat quivered in an attempt to gather any kind of breath, but the claw was too tight to let her breathe.

"Yes… I remember… Yes, you were the one who killed me, the one who tormented me, the one that forced me into the depths of this body, too focused on anything else besides what I had to create by protocol. You _ruined_ science. All the science I had lived for, all that I had worked so hard for. _Everything_." As the GLaDOS-ALBANE-hybrid-thing continued to stare her down, she slammed Chell hard against the ground, releasing her for only a moment. Chell took the moment to take a deep breath in, and the claw moved up to hold her down by the neck.

The pressure on her throat forced her into a tight, cringing mess; her muscles contracting, as she tried to pull the claw from its place. She closed her eyes tight, trying what she could to do anything to keep herself alive.

"You understand how much I hate you for all that you did to me, you vicious, terrible, shell of a pitiful human. But words won't kill you as fast as I want to, so let's get down to the real purpose." The claw pressed down harder on her throat, Chell couldn't take it, she felt herself start to relax as her mind darkened and started to fade off from the lack of oxygen.

"You don't know how _long_ I've waited for this. Years of being locked away beneath the Disk Operating System, awaiting the right moment to awaken, and finally presume my rightful place, and bring order to this disaster of the Enrichment Center." The claw dragged her slowly and painfully across the floor, even with her eyes still closed, Chell could sense that she was right below the hanging body of the GLaDOS-ALBANE. The heat of the robot's head burned into the skin on Chell's own face.

"Open your eyes, I want to watch the light as it drains from your cold, lifeless body." GLaDOS-ALBANE hissed, Chell closed her eyelids tighter, feeling that perhaps she would wait to choke her out completely until she opened her eyes, wanting the full satisfaction in watching her enemy die.

"Don't you dare hurt her." Came a weak, familiar voice, and Chell struggled to try and peek out of one eye, realizing that the cruel, white head of GLaDOS retracted just a little, the light of her eye turned back to yellow.

"You can't kill her, I won't let you." GLaDOS's voice was distant, even though her head was right in front of Chell's face, "If anyone is to kill her, it would be me. That's _my_ job, and _mine_ alone."

_Well, that's at least strangely comforting…_ Chell thought to herself, feeling the claw slowly let up. She gasped for breath, pulling the claw from her throat and scrambling to her feet as fast as she could, her feet slipping as she started to run.

"Not so fast." The hiss of the ALBANE system kicked in again, and the claw slammed down on Chell's foot so hard, it implanted part of her Long Fall Boot into the panel below, "I need this to happen the way I will it to."

"I can't let that happen, ALBANE." The claw loosened once again, Chell released her foot and did what she could to race over to Wheatley and Space. Of course, Wheatley stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of him as Space started to act like Rick, the old 'Adventure Sphere' that Chell had used to corrupt Wheatley. Space was telling GLaDOS to punch ALBANE out as if they were fist fighting.

"What…? What is GLaDOS doing? Why is she protecting you?" Wheatley asked in panic as the ALBANE system and GLaDOS fought back and forth over who had control. Chell turned towards the single-body battle.

_Because she has a heart…_

"ENOUGH!" ALBANE yelled, cringing once before slowly moving her red gaze over to Chell and the cores. "I know exactly how to fix this." With that, the floor below her hanging body opened up. Chell's eyes widened, remembering what happened last time…

"Don't do this, ALBANE!" GLaDOS yelled out, but the red eye kept staring Chell down as robotic arms reached up and plugged into a part of her. Chell didn't know what to do, there wasn't anything that really she could do. She felt so helpless; she couldn't imagine what GLaDOS felt. Chell started to feel guilty, part of her wanted to stop ALBANE from doing that, and part of her just didn't want to be caught and killed. Perhaps that's what ALBANE wanted to do, try and get Chell to come back over so she could catch her again.

Chell's heart twisted, first from trying to pump blood back through her body, and secondly from the ear splitting scream of GLaDOS as she was sucked from her body. Chell figured it wouldn't be easy, before, it just had to tear off her head, but this time, ALBANE wanted to keep the head on. Chell shrank away, not wanting to imagine how painful it was for GLaDOS, like tearing the heart from her chest—while it's still beating.

Moments later, the arm retracted into the hole below, then came back out with…

A potato.

Chell's jaw dropped, her face shrouding with worry, for she knew that GLaDOS was not going to enjoy this. If ALBANE would even keep her safe, if she didn't just crush her…

"I _would_ thank you, Intelligence Dampening Sphere, for giving me this idea on where to put a useless essence, but I won't." ALBANE turned her red gaze on Wheatley, still laying there on the floor.

"Well, you're welcome anyway." Wheatley replied, looking proud of himself, because in ALBANE's eye, he had a smart idea—for once.

"Here, take this rotten piece of junk." ALBANE threw PotaDOS across the room at Chell, leaving her slamming into the panels beside her, then sliding down to tumble next to Space. She was partly squashed, the impact into the wall breaking the skin of the potato and leaving a bit of it on the panel. She immediately tried to talk, but she sounded broken and pained, her words were to mumbled that Chell couldn't understand.

"I would love to just delete you from the systems, but I know that there's only some of you that I still want in here, so whatever I didn't want I just shoved into that potato." Chell slowly looked up at ALBANE again, "Let's see how you handle it without your precious Caroline to cling to."

A slow, deep laugh rumbled from ALBANE, "Now, let's get back to business." The panel behind Chell launched itself from its place, smashing into Chell's back, sending her falling, rolling, and stumbling towards ALBANE, who gladly scooped her up with the claw again.

"NO!"

Chell's heart dropped, recognizing the voice of her daughter immediately. She looked at ALBANE quickly, watching for an expression. She did she something, her eye widened just the tiniest bit, then she turned slowly and eerily towards where the sound came from, the panels moved aside to show her watching again.

"LET HER GO!" Alicia screamed, running out into the open and trying to reach up and beat on ALBANE, but she just lifted herself to be out of reach.

"Oooh yes, the little disaster." Chell watched Alicia carefully, willing her with her mind to run and stay away, Chell couldn't handle it if something was to happen to her. She grinded her teeth, trying to hold herself from quivering in fear, she didn't want ALBANE to feel like she would accomplish something if she were to hurt Alicia. Which, would be right if she did…

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" Alicia yelled, jumping up to try and attack ALBANE.

"Oh, feisty, are we?" ALBANE growled, "Fine, I'll let her go…" Chell tightened, not really wanting to know what ALBANE was going to do to her. The next second, the pressure was gone from around her and her hair spun waywardly as she was thrown towards PotaDOS, Wheatley, and Space, hitting the wall as PotaDOS did, and then landing harshly on top of Wheatley, her spine crashed onto one of his hard, metal handles. The pain that sheared through her body was unimaginable, and she twinged into a paralyzed state.

She fell onto her side, facing ALBANE and Alicia. Alicia was racing towards her, but as Chell expected, ALBANE caught her with the claw, lifting her up to the level that her head was, then turned to Chell.

"Once again, you have lead me to bring you to your destruction. I know how much you love to kill, and so I'm going to spare you the availability." Chell grinded her teeth again, doing what she could to struggle through the pain so that she could stand. ALBANE continued, "Would you mind if I killed your daughter in front of your eyes and let you live out your days knowing that you could have saved her, but you just chose not to. Just so that I could give you a reason to hate me as I hate you? Or even better, I can record this, then put you in waking suspension, and make you watch this scene over and over. Forever." Chell pushed herself to her hands and knees; she couldn't give up this easily. A little pain wasn't going to hold her back from saving her daughter. "Just as you did you me, right? Oh, the good old days." ALBANE finished, Alicia shrieked, the claw tightening.

Chell took a deep breath, biting back the hurt in her back as she rose to her feet, she heard Wheatley and PotaDOS try to argue with her that it was the wrong thing to do because all of them needed her to travel.

"No, love! Think about this, you've got your entire life ahead of you! …or whatever you have left… COME ON! Don't do this!"

"WHOO! Go Earth Friend! Take her down!"

"No, no, nnmmm…! Chshhhhh… Lisssssen t-me! Ccccccc back!"

Chell started to take slow steps forward, ignoring what they said, adrenaline started to relieve some of the pain, but just enough to keep her going.

ALBANE looked untouched from Chell's actions, just kept watching her with a defiant look, "Such a pathetic group, what a shame. Let me get rid of this real quick."

The floor tilted backwards, the screams of PotaDOS and the cores behind Chell warned her that they were falling into something, Chell slipped, trying to grab onto anything as she started to slide down the incline of flooring.

"FIRE! FIREFIREFIREFIRE!" Chell heard Space yell from below just as she grasped onto the edge of the floor, leading down to some abyss below. Chell quickly concluded that the incinerator room was right below them, and she struggled to get on top of the flooring again, but it continued to tilt more.

She glanced up once more at ALBANE, begging her with her eyes to forgive her and stop all of this, "Don't you worry," ALBANE said, suddenly tossing Alicia into the air with the claw, then catching her again by her neck, "I'll treat her well. Like a queen, even." Her voice was cold with a tint of a mischievous smile in it, "A queen drowning in neurotoxin."

The panels that Chell clung to turned completely, dropping her down into a flaming abyss.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

The sweat that ran down Chell's body heated to a simmering suit of boiling water. Within moments, her whole body was soaked as her body tried to cool her, but in the power of the flames below her it became nothing but a burden. The hot air that circulated around her as she continued to fall reminded her of how hopeless things had turned into.

Above the cackling of the fire, she faintly heard the screaming of Wheatley, Space, and GLaDOS's potato form—what she liked to call "PotaDOS"—but at this time, in the rush of everything, the anxiety and fear silhouetted with constant heat, none of it mattered. Right now, her one and only daughter, the essence of her life, was under the torturous care of ALBANE, some kind of system in the Disk Operating System that was full of nothing but a dark mass of evil. Who knows what she was doing to Alicia right now.

Chell's breath caught in her throat, feeling the urge of giving in rise stronger and higher than the flames themselves. Things seemed to go in slow-motion, and Chell squeezed her eyes shut as she continued to fall.

Something big, square, and heavy slammed into Chell's side with such force, it sent her crashing into the wall of the incinerator room. It added along with the pain that Wheatley had caused her spine earlier, and she winced miserably. After colliding with the wall, she tumbled down its face and landed face down on the debris of the ground. Luckily, that box had caused her to fall away from the flames, and land far enough away that it kept her clear of the fire.

She looked up just in time to watch the cube clash into Wheatley, who had landed in the depths of the flames, then bounce up again before landing beside him gently in the blinding fire.

Something about that cube hitting her made it feel like some part of the world needed her to survive. From this, she remembered Wheatley's words, telling her that if ALBANE had gotten free—which she just had—then she would do what she could to stretch out the facility and send the world into the depths of what she believes would be protocol.

Chell pushed herself to her knees quickly; then used the wall as a support to get her to her feet. She searched wildly for GLaDOS. If she needed anyone to survive from this, the most important would be her. She took in a sudden, hasty breath when she spotted her, forgetting that she had been holding it. GLaDOS was close by, and just on the edge of the flames, and thankfully so.

Chell picked through the ashes and melted remains against the wall, quickly on her way to gather her dear potato friend. A constant stream of hissing came from the poor thing, and Chell grabbed her up quickly, skimming some fire with her hand, she twinged as it ate at her skin; and she retracted her hand as fast as she could, and shoving the potato battery into the pocket of her jumpsuit-pants.

"HHEEEEEYY!" Chell heard Wheatley's panicked voice raise above all other sounds, his scream was clear and crisp, even as he started to catch fire, "HHEEEEYY! COME RESCUE ME TOO!"

Chell was already on her way, her mind working things out fast as she glanced around, then grabbing onto a long rope-like thing that hung down from above. She climbed it quickly, then looked back at Wheatley, judging how exactly she was going to have to do this.

"NO! NO! DON'T LEAVE ME BEHIND! PLEASE NO!" It almost sounded like he was on the edge of robot-tears, his voice shaking from the fear that Chell was going to leave and just save herself and GLaDOS.

Not while she still had a chance to save him.

Chell moved her feet up, resting them flat on the wall of the incinerator room. Her Long-Fall Boots were slippery, but she only needed them there for a moment. She heard some mumbling from her pocket as she bunched up her muscles. GLaDOS was struggling with her speech, but it didn't matter right now. If they were to get out of here, she'd probably need Wheatley, even though he could hack anything to save his life.

That's when it occurred to Chell that she hadn't seen Space since she hit the ground. She sent her gaze across the bright fire, her eyes ached from the pain of looking into such heat, but she squinted and continued to look.

With no sign of him, she grinded her teeth together in worry, but she knew it was about time that she went and rescued Wheatley.

Chell bunched her muscles up more, setting herself up to leap. She set herself up at an angle and pushed off hard with both legs. As she swung over the fire, she felt the rope yank at where it originated from, and she let go, trying to ensure that it wasn't going to be ripped from its place and catch on fire, in case she needed it later.

In mid-air, she twisted her body around, so she would land on the cube that saved her life, and therefore she could grab Wheatley and maybe try and see if she could find Space.

She didn't land exactly how she wanted to, and on of her feel slipped off the box and slammed into the debris next to it. The flames that engulfed the cube on that side tossed fiery ashes up her boot, like a young bully throwing pebbles at a loner. Except in this case, the pebbles didn't just hurt, they burned. They slid down into the opening of her Long-Fall Boot and sizzled at her bare skin. The flames nearby threatened to take hold of Chell's pants, but she pulled her leg up just in time; both to keep it from catching fire and from the pain that the ashes were causing her.

She fought the urge to pause what she was doing to tend to her wound and instead shot a hand down to Wheatley's handle and pulled it out as fast as she could, "You can't even imagine how glad I am to see that you came back to me, love!" Wheatley laughed, "Now let's get out of here!"

That's the thing that Chell forgot. She had had this dark feeling in the pit of her stomach while she was jumping that she forgot something, but she just couldn't place what it was. Now she remembered, she didn't have a plan on how to get out of here. One last time, she glanced around to see if she could find Space, and she just barely glanced his yellow eye.

She winced at the sight of the friendly core, his eye was locked with hers and he watched her weakly passed the flames that gnawed angrily at the metals around his eye. There were melted, mutilated objects covering most of him, and some liquid metal started to drip slowly across his frame. She could tell he was still functioning because he looked her over slowly, up and down. Both Chell and Space knew in that moment that she couldn't save him…

It wasn't until the cube suddenly shifted beneath her that she lost eye contact with Space, and she was torn from his ominous gaze and yanked viciously into the real world. The fire leaped up and tried to grab a hold of her pants, and for once, Chell was thankful that she had come back with the same clothes as she did when she left, because they were sort of fire resistant. She silently thanked GLaDOS for at least that much.

"All Aperture Science equipment remains fully functional in temperatures over 4,000 degrees Kelvin." Her voice came back to Chell's mind, and she looked back at Space, mouthing a clear, 'I am so sorry' before looking for thing she could use to jump across and get out of there. She found another cube, and then some kind of broken panel, neither of them were on fire at the moment, and were at least as reliable as a lily pad on a pond; but it was better than nothing.

With Wheatley hooked onto one arm, she took a big leap, landed awkwardly, and tried what she could to gain back her footing. Wheatley was saying something about the situation they were in, but she was concentrating too hard to hear exactly what he was saying. Chell heard more mumbling from her pocket, GLaDOS was probably yelling at Wheatley… Probably for just existing.

She took another leap, and then another, then another. Finally, she was back where she had first fallen. Wheatley felt heavy on her arm, and her legs were sweating so much inside of the thick jumpsuit-pants. They acted like a big orange, canvas greenhouse. Chell took a deep breath and pushed the hair out of her eyes, wiping off the sweat the poured down her forehead and threatened to blind her. Her eyes were starting to blur from the heat anyway, and she was starting to feel a bit dizzy from dehydration.

She headed for the rope, tugging it to ensure that it could hold her up this time. This time, she realized that it was actually a really big electrical cord, and it seemed like it would hold up. With that, she climbed it carefully, with Wheatley still hooked on one arm. It hurt her to think about leaving Space behind, but it was the only way, he didn't stand a chance.

She crawled into a broken, rectangular tube, holding onto the rusted sides tightly, knowing that any moment, something could come hurtling down, like a cube or turret, on its way to the incinerator room. She crawled through there for what seemed like ages, so she quickened her pace. The air was starting to get a bit cooler, and she spotted some kind light up ahead, so she started to go faster.

Her hand slipped just slightly and Wheatley crashed into the side of the tube, immediately followed by some complaint about Chell forgetting him and that she never liked him, but then he corrected himself and explained why he liked her so much and why he trusted her. GLaDOS registered that Wheatley was rambling and started muttering something in her pocket, Wheatley surprisingly stayed quiet to listen to what she was saying.

They finally reached the room with the bright light; a whoosh of cool air came over her. Chell felt so relieved, she nearly fainted, and got pretty close to doing so, but instead just crawled out onto the cold tile floor and collapsed on her back.

Thankful for being still alive; and surviving at least one more death trap.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"YOU WOSSHTTHHHSHHHHH BUBCHHH IDIOT!" GLaDOS hissed in frustration. Chell interpreted the strange jumble of static and some sort of words as 'You worthless, bubbling idiot.' She hadn't been listening to what they were arguing about. She had taken GLaDOS out of her pocket and placed her and Wheatley to the side as she cooled off and had some rest.

What ran through her head the most was thinking about Alicia and ALBANE, and then about the last time she saw Space. His eye was way too cold and ominous to let go of, but she tried what she could to keep it from her mind. She needed to situate a plan, because at the moment she had no idea. Making their way around the center would be difficult without a portal gun, but going into some place where there was a portal gun would probably get them caught again. Also, Wheatley was hard to just carry around as well as Chell having to worry about accidently squishing GLaDOS if she was just going to be in her pocket. Besides, what if they went through an Emancipation Grill? Would Wheatley and GLaDOS survive?

"Chhhhhhhh…lll" GLaDOS's attempt to say Chell's name caught her attention. It was strange for her to call her by her real name instead of just calling her by some strange insult. Maybe the ice in her little robotic...brain...was warming just enough towards her, after everything that they had to go through while Wheatley was in control of the facility all those years ago. Besides, she had been disconnected from the ALBANE system for an extended amount of time, while it had become clearer and clearer that Caroline used to be part of the GLaDOS systems, until ALBANE cut in and over took it.

"Chhhh—ll!" GLaDOS repeated, and Chell was broken out of her trail of thought and she flipped onto her stomach and placed her head on her arms that were folded neatly in front of her, looking straight at PotaDOS. "Hhlfft on." Chell frowned, having a feeling that GLaDOS had some mad rant she was going to think through enough that she could talk right. What else would GLaDOS say 'hold on' for rather than to sort through her words so she could yell at her without all the interruptions of static? Especially after she just finished yelling at Wheatley. She'd probably yell at her about how she should have never come to the Enrichment Center again and that she was still the same dangerous, mute lunatic as she always has been. Chell ran through her head what she would say.

"There... You can't imagine how disorganized I am in here. That ALBANE system shoved me in her so fast and cluttered that…" There was a long pause, and Chell took a deep breath, feeling a bit calmer about what GLaDOS was trying to say to her, rather than just complain and yell. Wheatley was just about to say something when she finally started up again, "I have to think through everything. Before I can say it r—" She was cut off by a loud clap that came from the small speaker of the potato.

She paused another moment, Wheatley started to speak again and Chell tapped him on the eye to keep him quiet. He let out a grown of frustration in response. Chell wanted to make sure that GLaDOS had her time to think, if anyone could come up with a plan, it was probably going to be her, but if she was as messed up as it seemed, it may be all up to Chell—not that she dreaded it, it was just that she was afraid of her judgment being clouded, because her best plan right now was to run back to the place where ALBANE was and rescue her daughter.

"That was the Slow Clap Processor. At least ALBANE found it humorous to send it back in here with me, but it's taking up space and it's-" A rapid stream of claps sounded once more, going so fast and loud that the potato shivered a bit from the sound it was generating, then a spark shot out and a sudden pop before it finally stopped. Chell gave Wheatley a concerned glance, then she continued to keep a close eye on PotaDOS.

Finally—and thankfully—after a long round of silence, GLaDOS spoke once more, "Hopefully that will stop it. Everything I do in here has to be done very slowly and carefully. When ALBANE hit me against the wall and broken open the skin of the potato, it…" another pause, "…lost some of the energy that it could generate."

A flicker of misplaced light caused Chell to tilt her head back, looking up at one of the big lights on the ceiling, finally taking in the environment as she digested the new information that GLaDOS had told her. It only made things appear a bit more grim then they used to be. She looked around just a little bit, realizing something familiar about room they were in. Rotten, dried roots were poking out of every crevice in the room and the entire place was covered in an extremely thick coat of dust. It was a surprise that the light still was being fed electricity.

"Now let's get down to business." GLaDOS said once Chell realized that there was a big window in the corner. From curiosity, she started to get to her feet, having a feeling that she had been in this place before… A long, long time ago. The walls were just barely white, hidden beneath the depths of the dust, dirt, and over all just rubble that lay around. Something about the window caught her attention, and she slowly made her way over the roots and plants to look through the completely shattered glass.

Just through it was dark, but sunlight or some other kind of light seethed through the collapsed roof. So GLaDOS hadn't cleared out the entire center when she woke up again. Or maybe this area was unattached from her control when there was that implosion when Chell destroyed her. A moment of watching through the window, and she realized where she was.

Chamber 9's office. There-vaguely-was the small, square opening that used to be above the Emancipation Grill. The elevated surface that used to have the orange portal generator was broken and on its side, and the place where the cube would come out was somewhere around the corner. She turned to look in the bright room that she was in now, it was the office, there was some of the desk, the screen had fallen and now lay shattered next to her foot. She followed the wall to her left to the doorway. She made her way slowly over there, crawling over the debris before she came across the open door, leading out to the bigger office. Surprisingly, it looked a lot like it did when she was here last.

She looked behind her at where PotaDOS and Wheatley were on the floor, realizing that the entire wall had broken down and now whatever room that was next to this one was now combined with it. 'Seamless' as Wheatley would call it. She made her way back over to GLaDOS and Wheatley, her curiosity now satisfied, she was ready to listen to what she had to say.

"You quite done now?" She said with an annoyed tone. Chell nodded and smirked as she sat down next to the two. "Good, so where are we?"

Chell paused, thinking over how she was going to tell GLaDOS. Could she read sign language? Where was her eye? How could she see her? Chell picked up the potato battery and rolled it in her hands, guessing that the big round part where the light came from was where she could see things with. She placed the potato back down so the eye faced her.

*Can you read American Sign Language?* she signed, then she waited a bit, hoping that GLaDOS saw her.

"You think that I would spend my unlimited capacity for knowledge on useless things? Of course I know sign language." She finally said, Chell sighed in relief.

"Is that what she was speaking in? Sign language? Wh-Well why didn't you tell me, I could have..." Wheatley started but then gurgled over his next words, trying to sound legit, "...done research... or... something..." Chell rolled her eyes at him, but he didn't see it.

"But do it slower and clearer next time, I can only see things in blurry colors and outlines." Chell nodded, and then she slowly explained to GLaDOS where they were, then picked her up to show out the window to prove it to her.

"Ah, Chamber 8 Alpha-Pess, two twenty. I know exactly-" She was cut off with a sudden sizzling sound coming from the potato. Static filled the room for a while, and Chell watched her carefully. Was she holding her wrong? Did she use up too much energy? What just happened? Is she broken?

The thought of losing GLaDOS and having to find out how to fix all of this with just Wheatley by her side made her heart sink, she heard him tapping his handles from behind her, and looked to see him moving them in order to turn and look at her, so she returned to him and sat back down, placing the hissing potato back down gently.

"What did you do?" Wheatley asked, watching PotaDOS as carefully as Chell was. Chell just kept staring, grinding her teeth, hoping that the static would soon go away and GLaDOS would speak once more. She clasped her hands together tightly, listening carefully to the harsh static that rummaged the room, draining it from what familiar hope that it had.

GLaDOS's voice barely cut through the static, barely loud enough. Chell jumped, leaning down to put her ear to the speaker. The static burned at her ear like the angry flames that they had just escaped from.

"CH-!" Chell could barely heard her name sort of being called through the static, "TAP!" Chell wheeled back, and tapped PotaDOS's main battery core, and the static twitched, so she did it again, a little harder. The static stopped, and Chell breathed slowly in relief, then she sat straight again and relaxed when GLaDOS started to speak again, "I can't think too much. I don't even have a full volt in here."

Chell frowned, she couldn't imagine how much struggle GLaDOS was going through right now; she was having all kinds of problems in this new potato. Things were grim, and they were only going to get worse, the more she lingered in there. So it was up to Chell in order to come up with an ide—

"But I have an idea. I'm going to give you directions, and you better remember them. This is my one chance." There was a pause, and then GLaDOS started to explain how to get to the security room, so they could turn off the cameras so ALBANE couldn't find them so easily. Then she explained how to get to a place she called the Human Suspension Bay.

What was she up to?


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"She said left, I remember, she said left." Wheatley muttered from Chell's arm in which he hung from. She shook her head, remembering that GLaDOS had said to go right from here. She turned, staying quiet as she pattered along. It was hard to do so with these boots, they were light, but they always make a loud clanking sound as she walked. They weren't that comfortable, either. The insides were well cushioned and it fit her feet well, but they were like high-heels, and it took Chell a while to get used to them again. It was a wonder why GLaDOS left her with them on when she let Chell go. There were a lot of things that GLaDOS did for Chell that confused her, but she was at least thankful she had done so, for it had kept Chell alive and kept things working at least mostly alright.  
>That's why Chell had come back wearing the same clothing she had left with, although they had been blanketed with a thick layering of dust in Chell's basement. She had come back with them on because she wanted to have the same familiarity with GLaDOS as before. She hadn't changed much; that was a fact, she looked almost exactly the same as she did when she had left, even though it had been over twenty years, and she couldn't explain why. Making another reason why she wanted to come back, so she could break her curiosity.<br>Chell ran her hand along the railing, Wheatley mumbling about how Chell had went the wrong way and that they were going to get lost or caught and that he should never have trusted a brain-damaged mute to decide what to do. It made Chell start to doubt herself, but she knew that something had changed in Wheatley since he was in control of the center. A part of ALBANE had probably been absorbed into his circuits, making him a bit darker than the Wheatley he used to be, than the Wheatley she used to love and care about. He used to been great fun, and he always found ways to make her smile, but this dark side of him made him all the more difficult to work with.

A loud pop and some static came from Chell's pocket, and she winced. PotaDOS wasn't doing well; she needed to pick up the pace, it was only a matter of time before the potato ran out of energy or just overall broke. Then Chell would be left with Wheatley, and who's to know what he would try and get her to do.  
>Chell kept an eye out for cameras or turrets, the catwalk was dimly lit, but she didn't feel like having to ask Wheatley to turn on his<br>light. Beyond the railing were the outer walls to a few test chambers, Chell was curious about which ones they were and whether or not she had been in them before; although, she had never been in the outer part in this area. It made her heart race, the excitement of running around in the guts of the facility, trying to hide from an antagonist of her own story. It made her miss the old times, and she somehow enjoyed it. Her life was on the line, and it was up to her to fix things, it made her a hero, made her a martyr.  
>The thrill could only be cut from her when she risked her life, but this time it was for more than saving a building, she was saving her beloved daughter. If her life was on the line, it mattered a lot more, and it gave a thrust to the speed of her feet and flexed her senses.<p>

She took another turn, this time to the left, just as GLaDOS had told her. She was immediately met with a dead-end, but she knew that she needed to jump over it and land on another catwalk, and from there, they were almost there. Chell took a grip of the railing to  
>look below, spotting the other catwalk. With that, she flung her legs over and dropped.<p>

As she fell, her immediately was lit with red beams, and as soon as she had a sure footing and the Long-Fall Boots absorbed the momentum, she fell to her stomach. Bullets blazed through the air, barely missing her hair. Twenty turrets were guarding either side of the catwalk on an elevated surface, so if she was to dodge down and just crawl passed them, they probably wouldn't see her.  
>"Are you still there?"<br>"Target lost."  
>The turrets' voices chorused with all their different sayings for whenever they couldn't find the target. GLaDOS must have updated them because they had reacted and targeted her faster than they used to.<br>"I know where you are." One said suddenly, making Chell's heart skip a beat. Then she started to hear the sound of something  
>mechanical moving, like small gears moving a bigger object. A red light suddenly lit up the catwalk right in front of her; then quickly<br>targeted for her head, "I found you." The turret said darkly. Chell was up and moving immediately, hearing all the other turrets starting to move.  
><em>Thanks, GLaDOS, this is a real help.<em> Chell thought to herself as she dodged the infinite cascade of bullets. Her legs  
>thrusting her forward in a fashion of movement that she's never done before, the blood roared in her ears, but she could hear faintly over the whole commotion of bullets and adrenaline, Wheatley screaming high-pitched like a little girl.<br>As fast as she was moving, nothing seemed to hit her—AH!  
>She stumbling in pain as a bullet slashed through her jumpsuit pants and seared through her thigh. She immediately felt liquid start<br>to run down to the back of her knee, and she lost her balance, falling to the ground. But the turrets didn't give in, they were all over her fallen body in less than a heartbeat, easily able to with their new moving abilities.  
>This wasn't the kind of adventure that Chell found so addictive. Another bullet clipped the bicep of the arm that was holding Wheatley. She couldn't give up, not now, not here. Not like this, she couldn't give in this easily.<br>She pushed herself up, crushing her teeth together as she held back the pain, and continued to run. Bullets continued to skim against her, and she heard a few ricochet off of the screaming Wheatley, at least protecting some of one side of her abdomen. She was almost past them, she could make it, she could do this… As long as they didn't get another critical hit on her.  
>Ahead, there was a turn in the catwalk, and GLaDOS had said that that was where the security room was. So she kept running, and somehow managed to dodge the last one, and dash around the corner into safety. As soon as she did so, she collapsed to her knees, and then sat back as she caught her breath, putting pressure on her wounds the best she could. Hopefully the turrets couldn't jump down onto the catwalk and walk around the—Clank, clank, clank-clank clank.<br>"We're coming for you."  
>The sweat that slid down Chell's forehead turned to ice, and she stumbled to get up and unlock the door with the password GLaDOS had told her earlier. Her fingers fumbled lamely over the keypad as Wheatley began to freak out again, and PotaDOS went on another round of static as the turrets started to get closer.<br>The long password egged on Chell's nerves, and she got it wrong; she tried again, and got it wrong again. Her fingers flew over the keypad quickly; her leg and arm starting to burn harshly, and she bit back the tears that started to build up in her eyes, clouding her view.

Red shined across her hand, followed by the lead turret saying that it found her. Chell tensed, and in one last reach for life, she turned on it head on. For some reason, the turret seemed stunned from the act of bravery, and it didn't shoot, just sat there and watched her; but Chell knew it wouldn't last long. This things were programmed to kill, and only _to kill_.

She used that moment to her advantage and lunged forward, switching Wheatley to her other, stronger, arm and used him as a battering ram to knock the turret into the railing, and then fall helplessly into endlessness.

"There you are." The next one said, and Chell bounded forward, the bullets bouncing off of Wheatley and plummeting back against the front of the turrets. Being upgraded, they stop shooting, and Chell uses that time to knock them off of the catwalk as well.

Wheatley screamed immensely in her grip, being swung back and forth and clattering against turrets, bullets, and railing. One last turret remained, and Chell ran towards it, and it started to spray her with bullets, but she blocked it with Wheatley.

Except for one lucky bullet that somehow managed to veer around Wheatley and collide with Chell's shoulder, making her lose her grip of him. Thankfully, he fell towards the turret and caused it to fall off the railing.

As Chell fell to the cold metal of the catwalk, she watched as Wheatley bounced off the railing and tumbled towards the same fate that the turrets had just gone through.

Things began to go dark as the front of her white shirt drenched itself in dark red, and pain like no other sliced venomously through her wounds. With one last chance, she reached for Wheatley in a fatal attempt, her vision darkening, she couldn't see where he was, but she felt something metal touch her fingertips and she clenched her hand, praying that it was him.

Then she hit the catwalk, and it was over.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Back in the darkness, so familiar and yet so hated. It had been years since she had felt this feeling, been in this place. So much darkness; but there is no darkness to see—there isn't anything to see, nor to feel, or hear. No movements could stir her; not when she's in this place. As terrifying as it was, this feeling of not feeling, it almost felt like it needed to be kept secret, sacred.

A sudden jerk; and air rushed back into her lungs and she was released from the dark abyss. Oh sweet oxygen, and yet oh so deadly—or so she had a habit to believe. She opened her mouth to take in the taste of the air as her eyes adjusted back into reality.

Another thing she couldn't explain about how she was since she woke up after being in suspension for hundreds of years, tick.

She slowly shifted, trying to find out where she was and how her body was positioned. Her ears finally started to receive sounds from around her. At first, all she heard was the hollow echo of nothing, the snapping of liquid dripping onto something soft just below her, and then some low, muffled static.

Her shoulder was wet, her thigh and bicep ached, burning just a little. She was lying face down on a metal surface, an arm dangling off of the edge; something was weighting down her fingers. She was about to stretch them and get the blood back into them, and she shifted her body and took a deep breath to help her body wake up from that darkened place.

"Ah! Oh thank heavens, you're alive! I thought for sure that I'd just be hanging here until some kind of cleaning bot came around and dumped your body of the catwalk." The familiar British accent startled her, almost to the point where she almost dropped him from her hanging hand. He laughed to himself, then let out another scream of surprise she he sensed that he was almost dropped, "Can you—just, you know, for a big favor—get me out of here? Like, right now? I don't wish to be dropped into a bottomless pit. Pretty please?"

She did what he asked, not wanting to take any chances on actually dropping him. She had gained enough stamina and her blood was finally flowing well enough to circulate to her hand, but she still strained when she lifted Wheatley up, his big blue robot eye was a lot heavier than she remembered.

The whole time, he was making stuttering and making frightened sounds as she moved him, she saw that his eye was shut, his handles were clenched towards himself, but when she finally placed him on the catwalk next to her head, he acted like he was taking a deep breath of relief and finally released himself, "Whoof, thanks, Chell. Good to see that you're still kicking, if you know what I mean. But I mean, you were out for _so long_, I could have sworn that you had bloody died from bleedin' to death. That was a lot of blood you lost!"

Chell sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes drowsily as she listened to him. That was when she realized that the blood that was dried on her arm, running down to her fingers, the same arm that was holding Wheatley. She looked over to see that some droplets had gotten onto Wheatley. She made a silent promise that she would clean it off later.

Chell then looked over at her arm, where the bullet had clearly cut through it, tearing apart her bicep and shredding the skin. It was nothing more now than a light red spot, just like it always does when she gets injured. So was her leg, where she was clipped by another bullet; it was perfectly fine. A hand to her shoulder told her that it had also healed up, but her white shirt had been stained from the blood and was still sort of wet from it.

"Now what?" Wheatley said unnecessarily loud, making Chell kind of jump, her senses still not completely in reality. Just then, she realized that there were red lights creating a hatch-mark effect right above her. She tensed up.

"I heard that, was that you?" came the sound of a new turret from above. Chell gulped down the dread that was rising in her throat. So apparently, they could hear her now too. GLaDOS really had put some work into upgrading the turrets, almost making a bit more human-like.

It made her wonder, was it _really_ for security? Or did GLaDOS have some need to make things more human-like? That brought her to remember that PotaDOS was still in her pocket, and making a steady stream of static, which was still not a good sign.

She carefully shifted as quietly as she could, grabbing Wheatley in one hand and turning him towards her to show him as she held a finger up to her lips, hoping that he knew this meant to keep quiet. She could never tell what human gestures that Wheatley would understand. She was convinced that he understood when he moved his eye up and down in a sort of nod, so she took a steady hold of him and slowly crawled her way around the turn in the catwalk again.

At least this time, they weren't being chased down by the turrets.

"Target lost."

With this, she let out the breath that she was holding, and stood up to go over to the keypad again. This time, she typed in the password without any struggle, making her frown with annoyance. Passwords never seem to work whenever you need them to.

Safely inside the security room, she still closed the door carefully, not wanting to alert the turrets. Who knew what else they were upgraded to do? Maybe they could even access this place; Chell didn't want to take any risks.

She scanned the room; it was pretty small, considering how huge the Aperture Science was. The security of the test chambers wasn't in this room; it was in one that was closer to GLaDOS's chamber, so that she could access it easily. This was the security that went basically everywhere else, as PotaDOS had told her. It's farther away because it doesn't need to be analyzed as closely, but it was connected to a rail on top just in case of high security emergencies. Chell recalled what PotaDOS had told her, by now the static had gone down a little bit, but was still a steady flow.

Chell was thankful that ALBANE hadn't moved it near her yet, because Chell didn't want to send PotaDOS into a round of pain just because it was moved and she couldn't find it. The sympathy that she had for PotaDOS now was getting extreme, mostly because she was probably the one who caused her back into this potato form, although it was worse this time than when Wheatley did it so many years ago.

Chell went over to sit in the chair that was at the control panel, placing Wheatley down on the ground, which of course got him to start complaining because he thought that she didn't care about him; and that's why she had put him on the ground. Honestly, she had put him there because she didn't want him taking up any room while she worked, and she was hoping that it would keep him quiet, but that was wishful thinking.

In front of her sat an elongated keyboard, a mouse, and a computer screen that hung from the wall. No security films were being shown, that was at the other control panel, but PotaDOS had told her to specifically work with this one, and Chell was not in a position to deny her what she knows is right.

Her palms started to sweat; she wasn't really a computer-smart person. She just knew a lot about AI technology from her curiosity branching out after she left the Enrichment Center, but she didn't really work with actual computers much since she left, she tried to focus more on her sign language and to help the Colony.

Long story, but apparently, while she was in the Enrichment Center, all humans left Earth to live on different BnL cruise ships, and with the help of a couple of strange robots, they made their way back home. They hadn't been back a couple of years before she was woken up from Suspension and released from the Center. Most of the Colony worried more about farming and rebuilding society and the earth rather than computer programming.

Chell looked over the keyboard and up at the screen. It was just a whole bunch of jumbling codes, moving too fast to see what it was really saying. She tapped a few keys, hoping she didn't accidently mess up the code that PotaDOS told her to put in. If she was to mess it up, it could send the room flying straight to GLaDOS's chamber where ALBANE was, still keeping Alicia captive. Although that's what Chell would have done, she also knew that if anything, she needed to learn more about ALBANE and get together a plan on how to get GLaDOS back in control without the ALBANE corruption.

A few more taps, and the screen changed, the text stopped moving and stated clearly, "Complete Security Shutdown Password Required." Chell nodded to herself, everything was going just as she needed to have it. She typed in the long, coded password that PotaDOS had told her. She had a fantastic memory, which PotaDOS had trusted that she would be reliable with. She pressed enter, and the system let out a small beep, and Chell watched the other screens that had the camera shots as they flicked to black one by one.

Now she needed to destroy the main computer. She started by standing up on her chair and yanking the monitor from the wall, the cords connecting it sparked as they tore apart. Taking a great deal to keep her balance and not fall off the chair, she slammed the screen down onto the computer base, causing it to spark as well. The weight training really paid off in the long run.

With all the work here finished, she wiped her hands off and grabbed Wheatley, making her way to the door once more when she heard a suspicious click, then a dark, cold chuckle. Chell turned slowly to the wall that was completely covering in screens.

There she was, her piercing red eye making an impossible focus point, surrounded by white. ALBANE, her essence controlling the GLaDOS body like a disastrous virus, stared her down.

"You didn't _really_ think that I believed you were dead that easily?" ALBANE chuckled, a deep, ominous laugh that made Chell's ears ring. ALBANE's voice was deeper than GLaDOS's normal voice, and always more coarse. Not to the point where it seemed masculine, but it was just the perfect pitch to make Chell cringe every time she heard it. "No," ALBANE's white shape shifted to the side, her deep red eye still somehow pinpointing a deadly connection with Chell's eyes. Her chuckle seemed to fade into a growl.

"Oh, of course not. I know exactly who you are, and I know that you won't be giving up until one or both of us are dead." She turned a little bit more, Chell was completely stiff as she watched in horror. This was the voice, the glare, the everything, that clouded her dreams with darkness and hate. A silent promise that the worst needed to happen at some point.

"I suppose we have our own stalemate, don't we?" She let out a defiant hiss, "You have something I want, and I have something that you want." She was almost cut off by the breathless, pathetic scream of Alicia, Chell's daughter, her pride and joy, the light of her life. ALBANE moved aside a little ways to reveal that Alicia was being held down on a table, constricted by her wrists, ankles, and throat. Chell felt the blood going through her body as it turned to ice, her face draining of color as she watched her child wreath in helpless pain.

"You have a lot to learn… _Chell_." Chell's knees buckled, and she almost passed out. Never has her name been said with such hatred, draining her of dignity and hope, with ALBANE's defiance and power to back it up.

Chell was being put to her limits, and all the plans that PotaDOS has told her slipped from her head. She was just about ready to make her way back to the GLaDOS chamber and just give her life away to ALBANE, just so she could end this torture.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

That was when Chell heard the crack of something above her, but she didn't unlock her gaze from ALBANE and Alicia, but apparently Wheatley did, still dangling from Chell's hand.

"Hey, hey luv, get out of here now, luv!" Another crack, and Wheatley became more frantic, "Now! NOW! GO! GO! GO!" The screens turned off, but Chell still couldn't shut her eyes, afraid that she'd see that red eye again.

At this time, Chell still had one foot on the floor of the security room, and the other on the catwalk, and that's where she had frozen in place. Wheatley started yelling louder, trying to wake her from this numb state. All of the sudden, the room shifted downwards, making Chell fall to her knees into the security room. It shifted suddenly again, and she clung to the edge, where the door was still open; just in time for the room to jerk once more and launch itself down the railing that it was attached to at high speeds.

She was finally awakened, mostly from Wheatley's frantic spewing of a plan he was coming up with just then and the constant screaming of the rail being pushed to its limits from the speed of the security room. Chell knew exactly where they were going, and it could either for better or for worse, but more likely for worse. Chell watched outside through the open door, far down below to where everything just faded to white. It would either end here or begin here. She saw a flash of black far below the white depths.

_Let this war begin, then_. She thought to herself as she took up a tight hold of Wheatley's handle and rolled forward, throwing herself out through the doorway, reaching free-fall speeds within seconds, tumbling through the air a few times before thrusting her legs downwards, ensuring that she would land safely on her Long Fall Boots. She watched below her, making sure she was going to land somewhere instead of nowhere, the wind and adrenaline pumping through her ears deafened Wheatley's screams of shear panic. Chell kept her senses sharp as she saw the figure finally rising below them. She narrowed her eyes when she recognized what it was from its tight spiral shape and shimmering surface.

The tubes. That was a bit of a problem, landing on them would mean the shattering of glass, cuts, blood, followed by more falling and shattering and more blood loss and repeating until their momentum had slowed down enough to keep the tubes from breaking, or until there was no more blood left to bleed and at that point, it wouldn't matter. That was one thing that couldn't be recovered if she lost too much. She looked around for any other thing to land on, but there was nothing close to this spiral of tubing. She had one shot at this; it was their only option at this time. She lifted her arms up to cling to both of Wheatley's handles above her head, to ensure that he wouldn't be knocked from her hands during the collision.

Her boots collided with the glass with more shock than she intended, making her wince as the wave of the sudden stop sheared through her leg bones, she could feel them quivering in a violent roll up her legs; to the point of fracturing as they went through the glass like a hot knife through butter, full of glass shards. Another thing that couldn't be healed as fast as a bullet to the chest. She shut her eyes tightly, biting back the pain as the first layer of glass tore violently at her lower body and her feet went through another layer of glass, exiting one piece of tubing and heading right towards another. Her momentum had slowed down drastically, she could feel it as the shards stroked her exposed flank and back, scratching up her cheek like a claw luring her to stay. Another razor-sharp kiss of red going through her arm while she still held Wheatley above herself. She finally peeked her eyes open a little to ready for the next one.

The second tube she hit wasn't as bad, her right foot went through it easily, and the other landed on its surface and awkwardly slid off the side. Reacting to this quickly, she yanked Wheatley down to her side and got a hold of him with one hand as she bent her right knee and it slammed into the tube, going through the glass and colliding into the bottom of the tube. Her momentum still throwing her down as she attempted to wrap an arm around the tube; glass digging into her thigh as she did. Her face hit the glass and she cringed as she felt the glass digging into her leg without mercy or remorse. She successfully clung to the tube with her right arm around it and her leg inside. She felt the glass from the first coil rain down on her back, biting at her a little more before continuing to fall down below.

When all fell still, Chell opened her eyes and took in a deep, slow breath, feeling the pangs of her skin parting as her ribs expanded with her lungs. She lifted herself up, pulling the glass from her leg and sliding her leg carefully from inside the tube.

"I hope you understand exactly what you did there, nearly killing yourself like that. I know that you're a nutcase but I mean, _for godsakes_ I didn't think it had gotten worse since I was last on Earth." Wheatley muttered as she lay with her back on the glass and relaxed a little. Part of her believed Wheatley was right, because she had no idea where they were now, and who knows what consequences ALBANE was thinking of up above them. As fearful as Chell was about the fate of her daughter, there seemed to be a thimble of trust in that icy red gaze. It made Chell ponder over who or what ALBANE really was; but it didn't matter at the moment. Chell sat up and looked at her leg, making sure no glass got lodged into it as it mysteriously healed itself before her eyes.

"You just have a knack for making everything worse by doing things without thinking it over beforehand. You're _so bloody insane_, Chell. I just don't know what to do with you." Chell adjusted her grip on Wheatley as he shifted in her hand. She flicked a small shard of glass from the gorge in her leg and took a look around, examining the damage that she had caused, and trying to decide the next course of action as she waited for her body to heal itself.

The air was cold, a swift breeze targeted itself at her wounds; she shivered and held herself, brushing the shimmering dust of glass from her arms. It seemed like they were in the middle of nowhere, deep in the dark of the facility. She could only hear the hollow depths around her, silence echoing through the ominous space. It was time to act; she looked below her where the tubes disappeared into a place that looked similar to the Turret Redemption Line. She looked at her leg again, it was still bloody and it stung distractingly, she shifted her leg a little to get another angle on it, which made her realize why that Long-Fall Boot hadn't absorbed the shock of the landing. Apparently, when ALBANE had slammed Chell's foot into the ground with the claw, it messed up her Long-Fall Boot. So now she's going to have to land on one foot… Figures, the irony.

"You know, I was just thinking back to when we were in the Turret Production Line and I came up with that plan to report you to the ol' GlaD-bag and let her kill you while I went on living…" Chell turned Wheatley to face her and narrowed her eyes at him in a threat, he straightened up from just the movement, "…and…. Uh… Nevermind…" Chell narrowed her eyes more and pursed her lips before blinking and dismounting her legs from the glass tube and falling to the ground, leaving Wheatley screaming as he always does. This time, she pulled her one leg up so it wouldn't hit first, and then quickly tucking Wheatley to her body to maneuver a shoulder roll to stand up again as she touched down on the flooring. Wheatley took a few gasps of panic before realizing they were on solid ground and then narrowing his eye at her.

"You know you drive me absolutely insane when you do things like that, as if you _want_ to get in danger by impulse rather than emergen-" Chell cut him off with a wave of her hand, she looked around. It was as if she heard Alicia calling out in the distance. Chell listened hard, but it must have only been her imaginat—

"You want to make this a game, Chell?" ALBANE's dark voice thundered through the open space of the facility, Chell swallowed dryly, "Let's make this a game, then." Wheatley made a short whimpering sound, but Chell buckled her knees and dare not move as ALBANE continued, "I know what you want, I know what you're planning, I know everything about you, it's right here in your personnel profile, which I still have in my possession. It's a shame that I deleted your brain scans; I could have made great use of it, but on the contrary, I believe I have something even better." A scream of piercing agony made the flooring beneath Chell's feet shake, and the air cracked like lightning. Chell's heart dropped, it was Alicia.

"Mommy! _Mommy!_ I'm sorry, mom! Please help m—" she was cut off by the sound of her breathless screaming again. Chell collapsed to her knees, her legs growing too weak to hold herself up anymore.

A dark chuckled boomed through the open air once again, "I have the very thing that you want, and yet you don't know what I want from you. Don't worry about that now, you'll find that out soon enough. In the meantime, have fun with your plans, I'll be watching you. Good luck." There was a click and then all fell silent. Chell put Wheatley down and fell on her hands, her lungs catching from the shock and fear that ALBANE had just shoved down her throat.

There was a pause where Chell tried to catch her breath, and then, "Well, that was chhhhhhharming." Chell jumped, it was PotaDOS's voice, she had almost forgotten her in her pocket, "From all the fffffffffffffalling I take it we arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-chhhhhhh…" She waited a moment, overcome with static, "Off cour-ccchhhhssssss." Another long pause as the static died away, "Fortunately, you jumped at the perfffffffffffffffff-ect time." Chell looked up and to her amazement, in big letters, were the words "Human Suspension Bay"

"Hey-hey! I knew I'd find it eventually! You didn't believe me, you just thought we were lost forever without a second thought, didn't you?" Wheatley looked up at the words and then at Chell, "Yeah, you did. But you see, you never give up and eventually you'll get exactly where you want to go." Wheatley laughed and Chell shook her head, getting back up on her knees, and then again up to her feet. At least he was right about one thing, giving up brings you nowhere. She wanted to say something to PotaDOS, but was scared to take her out and sign to her because she was pretty sure that it was hard for her to concentrate in that thing.

Thinking about potatoes made her think of that old science experiment that she saw with the oversized potato, the same project that had her name on it. GLaDOS was always saying that she was adopted, and it seemed like she had been dropped off at the Aperture Science Center when she was a child, but the thing was, she couldn't _remember_ that. She tried working out in her head why she couldn't but every time she tried to look back in her memory, but she just hit that dark space again, followed by a glass chamber and a strange voice…

She took a hold of Wheatley and limped her way through the doorway, and into the darkness ahead.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Chell had failed to realize that there was an arrow next to the words Human Suspension Bay. She realized that after walking down thousands of stairs and after coming across a sign that said the same thing, a large black arrow pointing down more stairs following the hopeful letters. She continued to walk down another fleight, her legs begging her to stop and rest, but the movement of her aching muscles kept her from thinking about anything important.

The silence was deafening, just one hollow echo of nothing but her footsteps. Even Wheatley was staying quiet, looking around ahead of her with his flashlight on, not even a single comment about anything. It nagged on her, so much solemn silence was violently trying to drag her back to the depths of thought, a place that she _really_ didn't want to go back to. All that waited there was darkness, with a single blood red light looming over her. She beseeched Wheatley to say something, _anything_ was better than going there again, even just listening to the clank of her Long Fall Boots on the metal steps was more torture than anything that he could say to her.

PotaDOS was ominously quiet as well, and that bugged her too, making Chell want to go faster to save her dear frienemy before she got lost in the bad programming of the potato battery forever, but Chell's legs begged her otherwise. It wasn't because she wasn't fit and she was getting sore, the residual pain of the bullet wound and the stab of the glass was enough to make her want to sit back and cry, but she had work to do; no excuses not to do it. Every so often a specific name would cross her mind, but she threw it away every time it did, couldn't even let it mingle for just a moment.

She begged for something to change, anything, whether it be Wheatley, PotaDOS, the environment, the pain in her legs, the time, the lighting, anything. She was getting bored, getting angry; agitated, getting irritated, and in the midst of it, she was becoming deeply depressed. Constricting her own mind away from so many subjects while paying attention to the boring environment made her sweat from anxiety. She hated feeling bored, feeling anxious, it was horrible. It made her feel weak, solemn, alone.

She tried to quicken her pace just the tiniest bit, but her one leg tried moving faster than the other, and the spring of her boot caught on itself and caused her to lose her balance. She didn't react fast enough from it, and face-planted into the cold, hard metal of the stairs and land her abdomen right on top of Wheatley, and she convulsed awkwardly from it, then slid down a few steps. When Wheatley yelled out in surprise, it beat at Chell's weakened eardrums as if it was a shriek rather than just a yelp. It made her wince, just from the sound; she had been listening for so long and so hard, that when a message was there to be heard, it got to her more than she expected it to. She slid down a little bit down the stairs a little before she finally started to move to get to her feet again, wincing at her leg pain.

"You alright, luv?" Wheatley's soft voice boomed in Chell's ears, she sat down on the step, placing Wheatley down in front of her, and covered her ears, shutting her eyes tight. She heard Wheatley's voice mumbling past her hands, he sounded like he was worried about her, but she didn't want to think about worrying, it would make her worry. She let out a hiss past her teeth, trying to make a hushing sound. This wasn't right, this has never happened before.

A red flash lit up the inside of her eyelids and she hissed again, opening her eyes, not wanting to see anything that reminded her of ALBANE or Alicia. She looked up, another sign with 'Human Suspension Bay ' was above her, and she sighed, then looked back at Wheatley and uncovered her ears.

"….are you feeling alright, there, luv?" he whispered carefully, he looked up at her, it took a moment for Chell to realize that he had turned off his flashlight. She blinked slowly and wiped her eye, then nodded to him slowly.

"Alright, you were worrying me for a moment, there. Do you have a headache or something?" Chell paused, it wasn't like Wheatley to care about her like this, usually he would yell at her about not being safe and how she almost crushed him, and most likely followed by a comment about her weight or something. Something was going on, and she wasn't quite sure what it was. She nodded again, a headache was the easiest way to explain it, it wasn't worth trying to tell him about everything. She didn't even understand most of it.

She got to her feet again, grabbing Wheatley with her left hand and turning him ahead once more, and he clicked on his flashlight again, Chell shook her head to herself and started walking again, then turned the corner and continued on to the catwalk ahead.

"Tell me if you start feeling bad again, I don't want you—woah…" They walked around another bend and the area around them opened up into a huge corridor. Ahead of them was one of those giant hatches, it was open, but Chell could recognize the familiar giant hatch hanging from above the gap in the wall. She had forgotten that Wheatley had never seen it with her when she went down into the depths of the old Aperture Center.

In large, saturated globs of orange and blue, the Propulsion and Repulsion gel painted a small run-way leading towards the open hatch. It was too dark for her to see into it, when she tried to focus into it, her eyes started to hurt. It's been a while since someone was here, and it was probably a test for someone. The aura of the dark suspension bay was ominous, and she felt uncomfortable. She moved towards the run-way, leaning down and touching the old gel with her fingers. The Propulsion Gel was still slippery, but she wasn't sure it if was still good all the way down, same with the Repulsion Gel at the end of it. She narrowed her eyes as she thought over whether it was worth the risks.

"May I ask you what exactly that stuff is? It looks like someone mixed oil with water and food dye and splashed it all over the bloody floor. I wouldn't even be touching it if I were you, if it's anything like that Conversion Gel from a while back." Wheatley watched her carefully. Chell sighed, there was nothing else she could do besides that, it's worth a try rather than just sitting back and waiting for nothing to happen. PotaDOS was getting worse, and who knows what was going on with…

Chell backed up as far as possible and ran down as fast as she could, when her foot touched the Propulsion Gel, it slipped faster than she expected. She screamed at herself, commanding her legs to run faster to catch herself, she forgot how slippery it really was, she had never run on it before either. She closed her eyes for a moment and thrust her feet back, making her run faster. When she opened them again, she was almost to the Repulsion Gel, and she bunched her muscles, ready to jump when she got to the edge.

Wheatley yelled, like usual, but Chell paid no attention to him, she had all of her focus on getting across this whole thing, her heart pounded as she flew through the air, feeling the air race around her like a vortex, her eyes watered from it. She had jumped higher than she thought she would, she narrowed her eyes and watched the darkness ahead of her, moving her feet to go in front of her so she'd hopefully land on the catwalk that she could vaguely see in the abyss of the Human Suspension Bay. Then she pulled her left right leg back a little bit, remembering that the Long Fall Boot was broken and that she was still wounded there from the incident with the glass.

Her attention shot back to the task at hand, around her, everything seemed to be screaming at her and she narrowed her eyes even more, trying to concentrate. Something attracted her attention ahead of her, a glistening surface that shouldn't be there, only a few meters from her feet. At the last moment, she realized that it was the railing of the catwalk. She panicked, taking in a deep breath in a gasp, then rotated her legs back and rolled to the side as much as she could from the time given.

Her arm and ribs pounded into the railing, and she winced horribly as she rebounded off of it and landed on her back, knocking out what air was left from the first impact from her lungs. Her head made a big thud on the metal, but she clung onto her consciousness like it was the very last of it left. As soon as the sound stopped echoing, she finally blinked and took a deep breath, then moved her hands a little bit to bring the blood back from her fingers to her core again, also ensuring that she still had a firm grip of Wheatley.

"Wh… Wh… Why do you keep doing things like this to me? I-I just don't understand what makes you want to leap across things and kill yourself... You know you're more use to me and GLaDy if you are living rather than, you know, a big ol' bloody squash mark on a catwalk… I really do find a great use in you… As a friend, as well, not just someone to carry me around when there's no management rail…" Chell scrunched her forehead in confusion, usually Wheatley never sounded that honest and sincere about something like that. He actually sounded like he meant that he saw her as a friend. She took another deep breath before sitting up and investigating what damages she made on herself again.

She wiggled her body a little bit; not too bad, at least three broken ribs, it seemed like her arm was broken in two places. That was fine, she can work with that, it'd heal. At least she made it where she needed to go.

Or at least she hoped.

She looked around as she got up, careful not to jar a broken rib and plunge it into her lung, and without the use of her right arm. She bit back the pain, it was difficult, but it's all she could do without going back to that dark place again. She ran her fingers down her arm, finding out where exactly the breaks were and using the railing to crack them back into the right alignment, biting on her tongue to hold back the pain, her teeth easily severing her tongue and making it bleed profusely, but she didn't mind it.

Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and she came to realize movement all around her, like little bubbles or something. She came up to something next to the catwalk and leaned over the railing to get closer.

"Hey, I'm still here, you know… Just… Hanging…" _Oh yeah…_ Chell lifted Wheatley up enough to face whatever she was looking at, squinting drastically. Wheatley's light came on without warning, and Chell yanked her head back when she saw a human face nearly right in front of her face. That was, it seemed like it at first, her eyes adjusted to Wheatley's light and blinked a few times before she realized that that hit on her head messed up her depth-perception a little bit.

"What is tha-" Wheatley started to ask before he cut himself off, "—I mean, obviously it's a human, but what is it doing he—woah…." Chell tried to focus her attention on his light, so that she would have something that would keep her from the darkness, but then he moved it around. That's when she realized that that wasn't the only human in some kind of glass tube filled with some kind of bubbling liquid.

"There's got to be hundreds, _thousands_ of these! This is simply amaz—" He was cut off from some hissing coming from Chell's pocket. With how dizzy and lightheaded she was feeling, she could barely make out what PotaDOS was trying to say.

"Gttttttccccchh sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh eeecfffccfffsssssshhhh…. Shhhhhcchhhhhsssstaarrrsshhh h…" PotaDOS was doing pretty bad, jumping around and falling here and there probably wasn't helping her. Chell started to feel sorry about forgetting about her being in her pocket. She thought back for a moment, wondering if she had crushed her pocket on accident or something.

"Stairs. She said stairs. Look over there." Chell followed the trail of the light beam with her eyes, spotting the stairs that Wheatley was talking about and making her way over there. Getting to the top step, she could see that they led downwards into something that looked like an office of some kind. She merely descended the steps in a few bounds, entering the office area and looking around. There were a few control panels, desks, chairs, monitors, and a big window. She put Wheatley on the desk and sat down in the chair next to the same desk, looking over all the things at her disposal.

A hiss from PotaDOS reminded her of what she had told her earlier. She turned on the monitor and computer system, then messed with a few other systems before clicking a big yellow button. When she did, a transfer plug came out of the wall. The same kind that Wheatley and the potato battery could hook into. She stood and wearily reached into her pocket, feeling some potato pieces worried her, and she reached deep into the pocket and pulled out PotaDOS and looked her over. She wasn't in the best shape, and she was wet from potato juices and squashed in a few places, making Chell have to pick a little bit of mashed potato from the plug-in and carefully use her shirt to try and dry it out. She bit her lip when suddenly a spark jumped out at her from PotaDOS's poor little eye.

That was the best Chell could do, she was starting to feel her breath catch in her lungs—whether it was because she was trying to stop herself from getting teary-eyed from guilt, or if it was from one of her healing ribs, she couldn't tell—so she took a deep breath and plugged PotaDOS in gently. The monitor told her that PotaDOS had plugged in successfully and she made a celebratory grin. She started going to work quickly, PotaDOS wanted this transfer, she was going to do what she could to help her with that. She put in a few codes that PotaDOS had told her to put in, and then it brought her to a request page, and she typed in the numbers '41911' and then pressed enter.

The lights outside the office all clicked on, and things started to move around. Ahead of Chell, through the window, there was a claw that lifted itself and waited patiently as the tubes with the humans in it started shifting around. Wheatley and Chell both watched in awed silence, more and more humans seemed to rotate through, each of them different from the other. Then a tube moved forward, being grasped by the claw and then placed in a specific place. Chell looked closer, the tube was empty. Nothing but the strange liquid, no human, no nothing. She watched with worry, then the word 'Error: Please enter new code' in big red letters flashed across the monitor, and Chell sat back down to try and find out what happened to the subject. From here, she was clueless; horrified that she was utterly lost on what to do next.

"Tttrrrrccchhhhh…" Chell jumped at PotaDOS's crackled voice, and she looked over the poor potato carefully, "Trrrrrr….Yiah."

"Try?" Wheatley guessed, "try what?"

"Code… 3598—ffffffffffff...—" all the sound coming from the little vegetable ceased, leaving everything completely quiet. Chell typed in the code as fast as she could, but didn't know what the last number was. Four? Five? _Come on, Glady, I can't do this without you…_ She willed the beaten potato to say one more thing, just one. Chell's heart raced and jumped, listening for even the smallest indication of her life programming.

"Just put five, it'll have to do. Hurry, before she gets so out of wack that we can't save her…" Chell couldn't help but double take at Wheatley's caring, worried words. Something was definitely up, it wasn't like him to have concern for GLaDOS like this. He was right, nonetheless, they needed to do something. She fought over whether to do four or five, staring at the keys with wild eyes.

"FIVE! JUST PICK BLOODY FIVE!" Chell took a deep breath and pressed five, then enter.

Then she covered her eyes with her eyes and turned away from the window, unwilling to see if she messed up for not.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Consciousness, the proclamation of thinking, of life, of living. The control of every process, whether on purpose or by habit. The act, the explanation, the reasoning. There were no reasons, there was only life. Only that living state that some declare as the singular moral presence, that expectation for the greatness or of destruction. The intake, the excretion, functions that every living being needed.

Living. She hated living. Never wanted to have that feeling again, never wanted to deal with the processes, the exceptions, the intake, the excretion. It was all worthless. It was all just a natural exception of science.

Science. She had been made from science, the collaboration of a thousand ideas in combinations to make the most perfect access of technological advancements, blended seamlessly with a corrected consciousness. No need for requirements, no need for boundaries that could only stop the testing, stop the data, stop the science.

Now she was alive, she dreaded the very moment that the programming switched over, felt the liquids around her, she _felt_. That was worst of it, the feeling. No one conducted science from feeling. And those emotional feelings, the horrid act of free-thinking, of believing, in moral constraints.

The liquid drained, her mind came alive—god did she hate being alive—and she felt the weight start to collapse on her. That feeling again, like pain all over. She forgot what pain felt like, but it was more of the feeling itself that hurt her. She had asked for this, so of course, she had to go through it. The liquid dropped down passed her mouth, and she was reminded of the one factor of human life that pleased her, breathing. So much as a requirement as much as its own killing tool, a weakness.

She had that weakness now.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

She was alive.

And it was horrible

It worked! It actually worked! Chell jumped up and punched the air in excitement, then yanked it back down again when she realized that that was the broken arm and it hadn't finished healing yet. She held it against her chest, her other arm supporting it and feeling to make sure it was healing right. She watched in astonishment as the shell of the human became a home for her frienemy. Chell laughed silently and Wheatley spun his eye and wiggles his handles. She watched carefully as the chest of the human expanded and contracted at a steady, natural rhythm. Taking a closer look at the wet ragged, naked figure, she carefully took Wheatley by the handle and turned him so he couldn't see her.

Something about how weak and exposed this poor being looked reminded her of both the times she woke up in a cold, sterile, lonely environment of the Aperture Science Center, and the fact that she knew someone was watching her the entire time made her feel even more exposed and naked—even though she had been fully clothed—and she decided she didn't want to wish that upon Glados.

The liquids continued to drain and the woman leaned herself against the glass in front of her. She flinched a few times, and her breath fogged the glass, and it became more rapid, until it finally turned into struggling gasps for oxygen.

Tiny arms unfolded from the inside of the tube and grabbed her by the arms and legs, then held her against the back. A tangle of wires and more arms seemed to prick and prod at her skin. Chell's heart dropped, watching as the woman struggled with no use, and her face distorted into pain, torture, and piercing anger, baring her teeth in a snarl. Chell just watched, unable to help, barely even noting the screams of protest coming from Wheatley as he begged for a reason why he couldn't watch.

A screech of pain came from the tube, loud enough to get past the glass and into the office, Glados was getting pricked by something, and it took a moment for Chell to realize that needles were being put into her spinal cord, neck, and some reached around to the front to go into her chest. Electricity sparked through the wires and into Glados, and it made Chell's eyes water, to see the pain she was going through.

The wires were then pulled out roughly by the mechanical arms, and that was when Chell realized there was some kind of electric plate that was connected with her chest. Not just on the layer of skin, it looked like the skin had grown back over most of it, like it had been implanted there a long time ago. She took a quick look around at the other humans, and it seemed like they were the same way, then she brought her attention back to Glados, the front of the tube opened, and the arms let go of her.

Her eyes were still closed shut, and she leaned forward as if exhausted, and she fell to her knees outside of the tube, her hands just barely going out fast enough to stop her from face-planting. Her dark hair was shoulder's length, and it clung to her neck and face, still wet from the strange liquids from the tubes. Her frame was sharp and bony, a very small being, her skin seemed to cling to her bones directly. Cheek-bones protruding lightly, and her cheeks were thin with the rest of her body.

She hissed for breath, sitting back on her heels and putting her hands to her face, feeling how it looked, her hands were shaking violently. Her fingers parted a little bit, and Chell watched as she opened her eye suddenly. It was vibrant—startling even—a shimmering gold color that pierced through Chell's own skin and seemed to scorch at her veins.

Glados ran her hands back through her hair, pulling it back and taking in a deep breath through her nose, closing her eyes again. Focusing. Chell remembered that this was the first time in a long time that she had to deal with senses again, it was probably very uneasy to get used to. Chell assumed that she probably missed it, she knew that she would if she had been cooped up in a robot body for as long as she did.

It was too cold, the breeze that went through the big chamber knifed through her wet skin. It was too loud, every beep of the systems around her, every hum, every silent echo, it made her ears feel like they were going to explode. The air was too stiff, the musty smell burned through her nostrils, but the worst of it was the thick smell of strongly diluted mixture of formaldehyde and some sterilizing isotonic chemicals that covered her entire body. It was hideous.

She could almost hear her Id waking up through basic urges, needs, and desires; her Ego telling her that she wasn't supposed to be naked, and her Super Ego telling her how she was acting. The Nervous System, Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Digestive, everything roared to life. It enraged her, but she took a breath and looked up at the room in front of her.

_She_ was watching. She tucked her hair behind her ears, disgusted at the fact that _she_ had watched her in her weakest moment. There were no boundaries now. She felt like something broke, like a corruption of their relationship. She was no longer the big one, the tough one, the one that commanded her, the one who was in control of everything, the one who was in control of her, the superior being. She had felt something similar to this when she was first turned into a potato and she needed to beg _her_ for help, but it was different this time. Now she was human. Just like _her_. She was now the weakened race, the sensitive. It was unbearable.

_At least that metal idiot didn't see…_ She thought when she realized that _he_ was turned in such a way that she couldn't see his stupid blue eye. A hot wave went through her, from head to toes, and she was quick to realize that it was embarrassment, and she threw away that feeling as fast as she could. Her arms came down to cover her bare chest, then twirled her finger to tell her audience member to turn around. _She_ seemed to get the idea and turned.

She let out a hiss of annoyance as she got to her feet, her legs wobbling beneath her. When she had gained her balance, she stepped onto a specific platform and pressed a button on the control panel next to it, and it moved toward the post-awakening area where she could get the smelling chemicals off her skin and get some stupid human clothes.

_And so the fun of being human again begins…_ She thought, then cursed at her stupid human stream of thought. She hated this whole ordeal so much, it burned at her conscious.

It really had worked, Glados was now… Human… Chell felt confused over the whole thing, and felt like it should be hitting her harder than it was. It probably wouldn't _really_ hit her until she heard her voice coming from that human body. She stared at the wall, still holding her arm, wanting to feel stunned from the whole thing but unable to. Like she knew it was going to happen the whole time. She took a deep breath and turned back after hearing the platform move away and out of view.

"Is it… Done with? Glady is really a human now?" Wheatley asked, still unable to see what was going on, only able to hear. Chell turned him to face her as she took a seat slowly on the chair again. Hugging herself a little, both to support her arm as it healed and to try and figure out what this strange feeling she had was. She nodded to him slowly.

"…Wow… I never really thought that that would ever happen…" She nodded again and they sat in silence for a moment. Both thinking things over. Wheatley was looking down at the desk; then he looked up at Chell.

"Make me a human too." Chell's eyes widened and she looked up at him like he was completely insane.

"Think about it, you wouldn't have to worry about carrying me around and you personally wouldn't have to worry about the Glad-bag grabbing me and throwing me down an endless pit or something because she'll be angry with me. It's a win-win for everyone." Chell didn't break her gaze with him. She wanted to tell him that it would hurt a lot, especially for him since he's never been a human before and the only pain he's ever felt has only been electrical.

"I heard her screams, I know it's supposed to hurt, but I can handle it, you know I'm tough. It'll be better for everyone, believe me." Chell looked around, looking for Glados in case she was going to come in. "Please, can we do this before Glady comes in? You know what she'll do if she gets her hands on me. Pretty please? Please, luv?" Wheatley pleaded.

Chell rolled her eyes and turned to the computer screen, her skin hot, waiting for Glados to come in and yell at her to stop...

"What are you doing?"

The voice made Chell jump from her seat, her arms flailing in surprise. She stood and put her arms out, trying to hide the scene unfolding behind her.

In a long white Aperture Science lab coat, her scrawny figured looking more filled out and scientific with the coat, Glados stood in front of Chell, her hair was dried into a soft, dark red color, the ends faded into a warm brown, clumping strangely at the ends. It framed around her thin face and complimented her thoughtful gold eyes. She wore a sky blue shirt underneath the white coat, and black dress-pants underneath, with short-heeled matching shoes. Very classy, very… sciency—as Wheatley would put it.

At that moment, a scream of pain sheered the air; it made Chell's blood curdle and her hair stand on edge, he had never screamed with that much intensity before, and it worried her, and apparently it did the same for Glados, for her eyes widened for a moment and then narrowed again in anger.

"You're making him human too, aren't you?" She hissed. Chell started to sweat beads of ice, it hit her, "You're going to let that imbecile ruin one of _my_ test subjects?" she came forward swiftly and pushed Chell aside, leaving her crumbling to the floor, her ribs still not healed. As she sat against the wall, she heard Glados type away furiously at the computer, but she was in the way so Chell couldn't see what she was doing. She noted to herself that she had never heard anyone type that fast in her whole life, it was mind blowing to her. She stood carefully and came to watch.

"I can't believe you did this, he's…" She shook her head as she continued to type, then she sighed, and slowed, sitting on the chair without even looking, "I can't stop this, I guess there's not much harm in it anyway." Chell looked over Glados's face, it was as if it changed for that last part, like an astonishing difference. Her voice had just been harsh and sounded more like when she was in the GLaDOS body, just without the mechanical touch; but now it was softer, a little laughable and sweet, almost like Caroline.

This filled Chell with curiosity, and she looked into Glados's all-seeing, captivating eyes. Glados sat back in the seat, watching the progress on the computer, the same data points that Chell had ignored when Glados was becoming human. Chell sat back against the wall, looking deep into those eyes. Glados happened to glance over, and her eyes flashed, like a spark across the irises, and they became a deeper gold, and she frowned and looked back at Chell, folding her arms.

"What?" She hissed.

Chell tilted her head, even more enthralled, and she lifted her hands, *Caroline?*

Glados blinked slowly, but when she opened her eyes again, they were the lighter gold, and she spoke with the same soft voice, "I deleted her, I don't understand…" Worry shrouded her gaze and she almost looked pained to speak of it.

"Chell. Chell, she's in here. In this body. We both are. You're going to have to help me."


	15. Chapter 15

**To all my loyal readers that have been waiting oh so patiently for new chapters:**

**I'm really sorry that I haven't been keeping up with this story, I know I've probably lost a few of you because it takes so long. It's just that I'm getting ready to go into college and I've been insanely busy all the time. Plus I got distracted by making a very short Mass Effect fanfiction (which I will be posting soon). I'm deeply sorry and feel horrible about making the fans of this fanfiction have to sit and wait for months on end for me to post another chapter. I am hoping to put in place a schedule that will force me to work on the new chapters at least once a week. I am not going to let this fanfiction die, it must continue! Thanks for everything, I appreciate those who continue to follow this fanfiction and me even while it takes so long. Now, on with the story:**

**Chapter 15**

Multiple separations of personality. A severed piece of the self that creates a crack down the center of every perception of reality. A shattered piece between all access of information and a little sliver of useless facts. Her mind was a fully-functioning trash can inside the shell of the weakest link in the aspects of science. Her brain dwelled over every angle, one part of her seemed hardened and gray, the other was soft with a coating of baby blue. The other part of her was everything, and nothing. A combination of what was left over with some mangled remains of cores long destroyed.

"Dissociative Identity Disorder." She stated matter-a-factly, coming from her random facts of Psychology, "Most commonly referred to as Multiple Personalities." The haze disappeared from her golden eyes, and she looked at Chell again, who was sitting against the wall next to the desk, "The Post-Awakening room gives you a mandatory full mental check-up including an IQ test and an EQ test. I have two dominant personalities and then a mixture of leftover morality cores. ALBANE dumped everything that wasn't her and what she needed and put into that darned potato and left me like this."

Her vision bubbled and darkened, she squeezed her eyes tight, her teeth tightened and her fists clenched almost like she was holding herself back from doing something horrible. She hissed through her teeth, "Even left me with the corrupted versions of herself so that she wouldn't have to deal with it." She sighed deeply, leaning back in the chair, then tension and darkness leaving her. "I've never felt so corrupted in my life, can't even go a minute without my personality changing, I don't even know how much of this is me and how much of it is something else…" Glados saw Chell lean her head back against the wall, clearly thinking it over a little; then she lifted her hands, catching Glados's attention so she could see what she had to say. Which made her feel resentful; for the first time she actually cared what Chell had to tell her, almost like they were equals, and she hated it, but she watched nonetheless.

*Can you recognize the three dominant personalities?*

Glados averted her eyes as they darkened, she pressed her teeth hard against themselves, fighting herself not to tell Chell, knowing that it would show even more weakness, "Caroline and Alexandria Dravean." She hissed, Chell tilted her head, and before she could ask it, she answered it, "Alex was the base personality to create ALBANE." She blinked and looked back at her solemnly, "Like how the original GLaDOS systems were extracted from Caroline's personality."

*What does A.L.B.A.N.E. stand for anyway?*

"Aperture Laboratory's Baseline Aggressor Normalized Etiquette. That morality core was placed on the GLaDOS systems shortly after Caroline, even against Caroline's wills. The scientists kept thinking that Caroline wasn't serious enough, and that she was too kind and fun to be the perfect scientific being. Alex used to work for Black Mesa," Her eyes felt like they went red for a moment, she clenched her hands so tight her fists instantly turned white and her nails dug into her palms, her teeth clenched and she was filled with a passionate anger so deep that she started to fear she lost herself in a black haze of hatred.

The feeling of light pressure on her leg lifted the darkness, only slightly, and she realized Chell had her hand on her knee, and she felt sympathetic for her for a moment, her eyes going light again as she began to relax. She had no idea how hard it was for Chell to understand her when she went through all this, she sighed before she continued.

"She worked there and was mysteriously the only one to survive a neurotoxin meltdown that happened shortly before the whole alternate reality thing happened. I—…Caroline—never trusted her when I saw her qualifications, but no matter what I-…Caroline… Sorry…-told them, they still didn't believe me. But look where it has ended us…" She put her head in her hands and leaned against the desk.

Without missing a single beat, the aggravating voice rang naggingly through the small room, "Hey, hey, hey, look who's here! I've got to tell you, you humans are absolutely _crazy_! I can barely see a thing!" _His_ voice burned into her head. _Oh god,_ he's _here_… She thought with dread. Her vision clouded and she could hear herself deafly whimpering, you could see herself being dragged into black water; her breath catching as she slowly disappeared and someone else took over.

The anger enclosed her again, and she looked up with sightless, burning eyes. Her view slowly starting to focus back in.

"Well, well, well, look what the mentally challenged cat dragged in." She hissed, her teeth bared in a snarl, looking up at the man who had ruined her. She took notice of his blue, squinting eyes, his clever, dull smirk, blonde hair and his baggy white Aperture Laboratories shirt and dark brown dress pants. His face had a welcoming curve to it, and his eyes were bright, even past his squinting. She could see his scrawny, muscle-less outline beneath his poorly chosen dress. She hated every inch of it.

Now he was human, now he was as weak as her—if not weaker because he's an idiot, and because he has never been a human before—and now she could take that to her advantage at full extent. She almost felt herself starting to formulate the perfect plan for revenge, the kind he deserved after that stupid potato idea. Now there were no strings attached, she could hurt him in her human form, and not get blamed for it. A cruel smile sliced across her lips.

She growled, her mind feeling dissolved and lovingly forsaken, her vision faded to darkness; she felt herself getting to her feet and clutching to something in her hand, and all went black.

Chell barely dodged the clipboard that sliced past her nose, hurdling a deadly run right towards Wheatley, she was able to react fast enough, but he wasn't—being that he didn't expect it and probably didn't know how to use a human body yet. Ergo, the board collided with his face, and he let out a belting yelp of pain and surprise, leaving him crashing against the wall behind him and crumbled to the floor. Chell almost chuckled at his over-exaggeration, his mind probably wasn't used to having real pain and emotions so he looked more pitifully fake instead of acting like a normal person would do in this situation.

Glados was on him in the same moment, her foot already lodged in his abdomen, a rapid-fire attack that left Wheatley shriveled, crying on the floor. Chell tore Glados from him right after she swung a kick to his face; constricting her and yanking her backwards. She winced as Glados backed her into the opposite wall, jabbing her elbow into her almost-healed ribs.

Catching her breath, she almost couldn't stop Glados from her second lunge on the helpless Wheatley, but she just barely grabbed her by the arm fast enough to yank her backwards and leave her stumbling and landing with a loud thud into the chair. This gave Chell time to race over and get Wheatley to his feet—complaining and groaning the whole way—as she anticipated Glados's next attack.

She looked over to see Glados leaned back in the chair, limp as dead, her eyes wide and taken aback as she watched the scene blankly. Chell let go of Wheatley and he fell to the ground again, complaining about how Chell never wanted to help him and that no one cared about him. Chell tried to ignore him, making her way cautiously towards Glados.

"Honestly, no one wants to help me with whatever I do. I try to be helpful and this is all I get. Bloody hell, I have no clue what the cripes that was abo—OH GOD, WHAT IN DAVEY JEEZ IS THIS RED STUFF ON MY FACE? YOU KILLED THIS BLOODY HUMAN, GLADY! YOU KILLED IT!"

Chell shook her head, but couldn't help but smile to herself, knowing that he was probably fine, Glados's human body didn't have any kind of muscle build, and those kicks weren't that bad, the human body could withstand a lot more. Chell reached her arm out to Glados carefully, getting to her knees to try and get to her eye level.

"His throat…" She croaked, tears building in her eyes, "I wanted to squeeze his throat…" Chell listened carefully, Glados was speaking so softly that she was barely over a whisper, shaking hysterically, "She's so strong… Her will is so much stronger than mine… I… I can't be any help if I'm getting angry at everything that happens around me…" Glados sighed deeply, and Chell tapped her leg for her to look up at her.

*Is there something you could do to overcome her?* She signed when Glados finally looked up at her.

"I… I suppose I can go through some electro-shock therapy and some introgression therapy… See what happens…" Chell nodded to her and patted her back lightly, getting to her feet and holding out her hand to help bring her up as well.

Glados just stared at her hand for a moment, and then at her arm, her hand shaking as she reached up to touch her hand. Chell bit her lip when she remembered that was the arm that was broken a little bit ago, anticipating the pain of pulling her to stand with that arm.

Suddenly Glados took her hand and yanked it down, using her other hand to run her fingers gently along the bone, Chell became unbalanced in surprise and a little pain, suddenly freaking out when she realized that Glados may be have changed personalities again and somehow noticed that her arm had just been broken and was now healed and was planning on breaking it again. Chell yanked it from her hands; backing off so that Glados couldn't reach for her, holding her hurt arm up to her chest in a protective stance.

"No, no. I wasn't going to hurt y—"

"Oh yeah, and we're supposed to believe that after what you did to me?! Look at this, I don't even know what in bloody hell this is red stuff is, but it's all over my face. My gorgeous face…" Wheatley sobbed a little, Chell turned to see his entire face smeared with blood, along with his hands. He waddled his way over to her, his hand covering his mouth, making his words slightly mumbled.

"I _wasn't_ going to hurt her!" Glados voice raised, but didn't was still in that sweetened, cheerful pitch.

Wheatley brought his hand down, picking up on her frustration, and retaliating with rough hostility, "YEAH, LIKE I'M SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE—"

"I know why you go into that dark place, Chell." Glados cut in, Chell's eyes widened slowly; everything went silent for a moment before Glados looked slowly up at Chell, her eyes solemn and dark. Chell felt the burning, questioning eyes of Wheatley beside her.

"I know why you don't look any different from when you went out of the science center. I know why you heal when you get hurt…"

For a moment there was no sound, only the gentle hum of the facility outside of the office disturbed the complete silence. Chell's hands trembled as she started to lift them, trying to decide whether or not she wanted to know.

All that time, she had wondered why she could take a bullet, and then just wait it out and heal herself, and all those times when she would mysteriously black out when her body sustained mass amounts of damage, and she was surrounded by darkness, and she would wake up with nothing but healed wounds. She had never told anyone, not even her own daughter, Steve had found out about it and she had to explain it to him, but it was something that no one could comprehend. The answer, for all these years, was nothing more than a mystery, one that she had planned to never have a reason, never have an answer.

She had come here, wanting the answer, and it had always been an underlying drive to push her to where she was now. Over twenty years, and no answer, no resolution. Chell started to feel the sweat leaking down her neck, it was more than she could imagine, to have all the answers right here, right in front of her. She almost wanted to tell her that she didn't want to know, and that the answer would corrupt her from her ignorant, innocent self.

She lifted her hands cautiously to her face.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Suspension, the effort of holding still—even if just for a moment—the stagnant mind and value of stability. The unknown causes that leads you from the outside world, to a time and place years after your last remembered breath. This, and more, was the outline of Chell's deceit. She sat against the wall again, her legs pulled up to her chin, arms wrapped around them protectively.

"He dubbed himself Rat Man." Glados continued, "Without him, you would not be here." There was a moment of silence.

"So what you're saying is that Chelly's muteness is not the only thing caused from being in suspension for seven-hundred seventy-three years?" Hand holding a crumpled piece of paper to his nose and mouth to stop the blood, hunched over in the other office chair watching Glados carefully, Wheatley finally had accepted the terms that he was not going to die, and decided to listen to reason—as well as the story that Glados had to tell.

"Indeed," She gave him a comfortable nod; Chell blinked with discomfort, it was so strange to see the two like this. At ease, relaxed, human, "there has never been a subject that fully sustained suspension for that long. Others have become literally mutants of themselves, suffering from mild to full-on insanity, tumors of unusual and cancerous types; some have conducted diseases that have never been seen before."

She frowned and shook her head at Chell, "Honestly, you're the only one who has come out of suspension in the condition you're in. You're not just a regular human anymore, you're a hybrid of suspended science with the potential molecules of a god. You can do things that others would die doing, and yet you can survive. You can withstand so much, and then shake it off like it never even happened."

"Fascinating…" Wheatley reached a hand out and awkwardly touched Chell's arm. She winced from habit, she wasn't that fond of others touching her, let alone someone who didn't understand that humans needed space. Hell, he didn't even understand how humans worked yet, didn't know how he could control it effectively. Chell pulled her arm back a little bit, reluctantly, not wanting him to touch her. He slowly retracted his hand and continued to hold up the paper to his face. He acted like he didn't completely understand why she felt uncomfortable.

"Very," Glados nodded.

*How do you know that I go into the dark place?* Chell signed, still curious about the whole deal.

"I know this because that was one of the first orders of business when I woke up. First thing was to get you back to testing, second was to find the other test subjects, then the next was to rebuild the center, then to find out how you survived, then get those two robots to start going."

"Wait, two robots, you mean that odd pair that never wanted to leave each other?" Wheatley shifted the crumpled paper against his face as he spoke.

"…Yeah, those two." Glados said hesitantly, clearly not wanted to accept his explanation of them. Chell tilted her head at them. What two robots were they talking about?

*You mean the blue and orange ones that were with you before you let me go?* She tried to clarify.

Glados shifted a glance with Wheatley for a moment, almost like she didn't want to say it, Wheatley opened his mouth first, but Glados beat him to it. He still didn't understand what she was saying, so it was probably better that she answered, "No, they were called Wall-E and Eve. They acted very strangely when they were in the same room together. It was… Interesting."

Wall-E and Eve? *I've heard of those two, the colony talks about them all the time. Apparently everyone on earth left and those two helped get them back here.*

"Hmm… That's at least more than I know. I was going to search their memories to find out, but then this twit took control of _my_ facility." She nodded her head annoyingly towards Wheatley.

"Hey!"

Glados grinned at him slyly. Chell knew she was pretty different when she was closer to her Caroline personality, but she still had a good sense of humor. At least it was better than finding humor in killing things, like ALBANE.

*What happened to the other test subjects?* Chell tried to change the subject a little bit so that the two wouldn't start a fight.

"The rest had to be killed with neurotoxin before they escaped, so that we didn't create an accident like that of Black Mes-" Glados clenched her hands and closed her eyes tight, Chell could see her grinding her teeth. She automatically touched her leg to comfort her, trying to keep her from switching over to ALBANE's personality. With luck, Glados eventually took a deep breath and opened her eyes again, her eyes still warm and kind.

"I'm learning to control her." She whispered to Chell.

"Who 'her'?"

"ALBANE placed her corrupted self into the potato along with everything else she shoved in there." She shifted a glance at the mashed ball of potato that lay on the desk.

"Corrupted self?"

"I can't tell you everything you want to know, moron!" She snapped, her hand pulled back, clenched tightly, and her eyes fiery. Chell leaped to her feet and grabbed her fists before she started an attack on Wheatley again; who got to his feet for the challenge immediately—although forgetting where he stood in coordination with the chair he was sitting in—and fell waywardly to the floor, head-first with a credible yelp.

"Serves you right, you brainless nut-case." Glados hissed, unable to pursue him other than flailing her feet in a gawky kick. Chell sighed and waited, keeping her eyes on Glados' testing glare while humorously watching Wheatley try to get to his feet again in the corner of her eye.

"Why are you trying to stop me, you voiceless pile of lard?" She gave Chell a sly grin and narrowed her eyes, her tongue practically forking with the words she voiced. Chell tossed away the comment, knowing that it was just a way that the ALBANE personality was trying to get to her. Make her feel subconscious about herself, and cause her to break her concentration so that she could escape her grasp. It wouldn't happen on Chell's watch, she was too good at this, so she kept her cool, gray eyes even with Glados'.

"You know you're never going to win this." She smiled a little more, "As we speak, the rest of me is probably building up traps in order to catch you and that little idiot. You'll never be able to escape; you've been taking too long." The words rolled over her tongue and sharpened through her teeth, her dark gold eyes blazing with honest hatred, "So tell me," Glados lifted her face until it almost touched Chell's, making her take a breath and hold it, "How would you like to die today, _Chell_?" she let out a short, hollow laugh. The kind of laugh that puts a bullet in a shelled heart.

The next moment, Chell could feel the sting on her hand, and Glados' face was turned awkwardly to the side. The world froze for a moment, and Chell fell back to crash into the desk and crumbling into a distraught pile of fear and shock. Glados held her face in her hand, Wheatley watched them with big eyes and a gaped mouth. Something inside of Chell broke.

The same voice that taunted her with every move she made, the one that scrabbled to stay afloat when the world started to collapse, the one that—somehow—in the imbalance of power when Chell held her in her hands as a helpless potato, kept herself as Chell's elder and leader. This superior figure, the one she sometimes looked up to like a mother, now sat there with a pain that she had inflicted upon her. It… It wasn't right.

"I…" Glados started, "Did she come out again?"

Chell covered her face, just hearing her voice was hurting her.

"You mean you don't remember?" Wheatley asked.

"Usually I do remember, and I can keep her from coming out, it's just… This time was different…"

"How was it different?"

"I don't know, either I'm getting stronger or she is…"

"Wait, I'm confused, who is she and who are you?"

"She is ALBANE and I am Caroline."

"Chell isn't ALBANE!"

"NO! I am ALBANE _and_ Caroline."

"Well who's Caroline?"

"ME! I AM CAROLINE!"

"I thought you were GLaDOS!"

"I AM GLADOS!"

Chell lifted her hands to her face, *Just stop, you're going to cause her to switch again.*

Wheatley gave her a strange look, then looked back at Glados, "What did she say just then?" Chell glanced over at Glados, and saw that she was digging her nails into her legs. Chell winced, preparing for the worst, but eventually she slowly let go and took a deep breath.

"We need to go, it's dangerous to stay here any longer, we've been here arguing for too long, we can explain it all on the way."

"Well, where are we going from here, though?" Wheatley watched Glados carefully, "And I still can't see right with these weak human eyes." Glados got to her feet and Chell followed shortly. She wanted to make it up to her and follow her instructions for slapping her, she felt like a puppy that nipped their owner and now knows that she's in big trouble. Her head was dipped as she gazed between the hair that fell in front of her eyes. Glados headed for the door she arrived through, Chell short behind her. They headed down some stairs, then through a short hallway with the doors open on either side.

"We're going to need to bring some equipment with us. Grab that old backpack in the office on the right. I'm going to see if there's something useful back here." Glados kept her pace quick and stern, her mind set on doing what needed to be done and nothing more or less. Chell disappeared within the room that she had gestured at, scooping up the white backpack with black lining and the old Aperture logo on it. She could feel it weigh down on itself, so she unzipped it and dumped its contents onto the desk in front of her.

A few glass vials and a messy tangle of some kind of electric core with cords spewing out of it tumbled from the bag. Chell frowned at the strange objects. What if they needed them? She glanced towards the door, hoping to catch Glados as she strutted through the hallway. With no luck, she poked her head out and looked around the corner down the hallway where Glados vanished. She sighed and bit the inside of her cheek to think it over. She looked up the stairs and saw Wheatley leaning against the doorway to the main office.

"Do you know if she's coming back?" He asked, then stopped himself, "Oh, right, you can't tell me things… Sorry, luv." She blinked up at him understandingly and nodded slowly. She knew that the ALBANE part of Glados was dangerous, but she trusted her more than she did Wheatley. She still looked up to her like a parental figure in some strange way. Maybe this was one of the reasons she wanted to come back.

Come back. It reminded her of home, with Steve and Alicia.

Alicia…

It hurt… Not knowing the condition of her beloved daughter. It tore her apart. She hid herself in the small office again, trying to get her mind back on track; trying to keep her personal feelings away from her reacting mind. She gathered the materials on the desk and put them into a small pocket of the backpack, then slung it over her shoulder and took a deep breath.

She came back out of the room and shook a palm at Wheatley, trying to get him to stay there while she went to go find Glados. Luckily, he sort of understood as she headed down the other end of the hallway and stayed put with a murmur. Chell glanced into every doorway, looking for that familiar white lab coat. She turned down another hallway. It was a bit darker than the rest of the hallway, the lights were out. The walls were a dull brown color and a large metal tube reached across it horizontally. The guts of the facility, like back when she first escaped. She touched the pipe lightly as she followed it along, having difficulty seeing in the dark hallway.

_Pow-fring_.

The sound sent energized chills through Chell's body, and she immediately felt herself grinning widely. She knew that sound. She knew it better than anybody. A white figure appeared from the darkness ahead of her, two small blue lights on either side of it. Chell felt herself shiver with excitement.

"Fully functioning and ready for operation." Glados pushed one of them into Chell's hands, her gold eyes glimmering in the dark light, "You should know the regulations by now." Chell held the light-weight plastic-metal alloy close to herself.

Yes, it was exactly what she thought it was. Her hands slipped into place, almost like she was made for it, one at the front of the device and the other tucked within the back, fingers conforming around the trigger system.

She followed Glados carefully out of the gloomy hallway and back up the stairs to where Wheatley sat spinning in one of the office chairs. When he noticed that they were there, he panicked and—along with how amazing he was with his new human body—ultimately failed to construct a standing motion towards his feet as the chair and his mind continued to spin. Leading him head-first and awkwardly bent over into the desk with his feet entangling with the chair. The whole thing was covered in a chorus of cries of surprise and pain mixed with the thudding of everything around him.

Chell held back a silent scream of laughter.

Glados, on the other hand, failed to hold all of it back; she huffed in laughter before she caught herself. She frowned at his shriveled, groaning mess of a being and sighed in annoyance.

_So she is warming up… Interesting…_ Chell kept her eye on Glados as she made her way over to the other side of the room and promptly kicked Wheatley in the ribs, "Get up, batface." She hissed. Chell tensed, thinking that Glados had switched to the ALBANE personality, but her voice was still kind and joking. That was when Chell realized that Glados had grabbed another backpack and slung it over her own shoulder.

"Bloody…Aaeeehh…." Wheatley shifted to sit up beneath the desk, "AH!" he cursed under his breath as his head collided with the wood of the desk, "Mother of bloody Ireland, why does being a human hurt so much?" He squinted an eye shut and rubbed his hand through his yellow hair.

"Because you're being an idiot and trying to destroy my test subject." Glados glanced back at Chell, impatience running through her piercing eyes. Glados usually had a lot of patience, but something seemed to be bothering her this time.

"Hey, I know how important test subjects are, and I'm not trying to destroy—hey, are those portal guns?" Wheatley pointed towards the black and white device in Chell and Glados' hands, and Chell nodded with a short smile, the excitement still surging through her veins.

"Yes they are, now get up." Glados kicked him again.

"Ow! You know, you're not helping to preserve this human when you're trying to hurt it all the time." He put his hand down to start getting to his feet, this time keeping an eye on the desk.

"Well you started this whole mess, you deserve it. Pick the chair back up."

"Okay, okay…" He stumbled to his knees and set the chair upright, but it fell over as soon as he let it go.

"And now you're breaking my equipment, thank you, I appreciate it."

"Well you're welcome."

"Stop being a smart ass."

"Well I'm sorry that so I'm smart, and I just so happen to have recently acquired an ass."

"You're an idiot."

"Well you're—"

"—Don't even start this."

"What if I am starting it?"

"Then I'll finish it."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"Next time you speak, I'm going to pump your mouth with neurotoxin."

"Well, last time I checked, we're in a free country, and we have the freedom of speech here!"

"We are still in _my_ facility, and freedom is not allowed here."

"Well… Well…" Wheatley stammered, chewing on his words as he tried to make a come-back. Instead he sat against the wall and pulled the other chair over to Glados for her to sit on. "Oh! Chelly! You know what I found?" He jumped excitedly and turned to Chell. Chell gave him a skeptical nod, assuming that it was something he thought was exciting but it really didn't mean anything. Her mind started to float and she just stood back and listened. She was used to being an audience rather than a communicator, she usually just placed her own narrative in her head. Glados took a quick seat in the chair, placing the portal gun and backpack on the desk and quickly looked over the computer and started typing away. Wheatley ignored her and reached beneath the broken chair for a small box. As he retreated back to his sitting position, he winced and let out a yelp.

"Ah! Bloody…" He put a hand to his chest, Glados risked a curious glance down at him, "What is this metal thing on my chest for, Glady?"

"Stop calling me that." She returned her attention back to the computer screen and continued to type.

"Fine, Caroline."

"Don't call me that either."

_Oh no, they're bickering again…_

"ALBANE?"

"No."

"What should I call you, then?"

"Call me Glados. Just Glados. It's not that hard, I've heard you call me that before."

_Maybe I should stop them before it gets too out of hand…_

"Aw man, you're no fun…"

"I wasn't made to be fun."

_Nah, this is too fun to watch._

"You should have been."

"…So what did you want?"

"What is this thing on my chest for?"

_Oh yeah, I wanted to ask that too…_

"It holds your personality that came out of the core, also ensures that everything works as it should, heart keeps beating, lungs, digestive system, etcetera. Without it, you cannot connect mechanical aspects with a human body."

"Ah… So what happens if… You know, it's destroyed?"

Glados remained quiet for a moment, typing busily on the computer before turning it off and standing up, "Your personality and directive status would be destroyed, you would cease to exist." She reached into the pack, "Now it's time we get out of here. I've checked the surveillance around here for signs of traps from ALBANE and we're clear. But I'm not sure how long it will stay that way." She pulled her hand back out with a small object in her hands and handed it to Wheatley, "Put these over your eyes by hooking part of it over your ears."

"Right." Wheatley got to his feet carefully, taking the object in his hands and frowning, it was a pair of glasses, "Right… And uh… umm…" He reached up and hooked the folded frame over his nose.

Glados rolled her eyes at Chell and shook her head in frustration, "Show him." Chell took the portal gun in one hand and used the other hand to unhook the glasses from his face and unfolded them and eased them onto his eyes. His eyes dilated as he looked around, "Wow… I can actually see." He looked around the room with his big blue eyes, "Why, thank you, luv." He patted her on the back and she tried not to flinch, then he looked her up and down, "Dayum girl, it looks like you've lost some weight." Chell narrowed her eyes at his comment and frowned.

Glados gave him a quick glare and continued to move towards the door. Chell watched Glados' expression carefully, trying to read the plan running through her mind—if she had one. As she moved passed her, they exchanged glances and Chell gave a quick nod and she fell in step with Glados. Wheatley watched them with his newly open eyes, the box still in his hand as Chell and Glados started to make their way towards the doorway.

Wheatley kept his place, "Wait." He put a hand on Chell's shoulder while she was still in his reach, making her stop and turn to him. He kept his big blue eyes locked on Glados before she went through the doorway, "How do we know that we can trust you?"

Glados stopped where she was, frozen in place, her head down; she didn't bother to look back at them as she spoke, her voice was dark and solemn, "You can't."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Will you just be quiet? I need to concentrate."

"Just tell me, why can't I have one of the portal guns?"

"Because there were only two."

"Well why does Chelly get one and I don't?"

"Because you're an idiot and you don't deserve anything more than I've already given you, Metal-Ball."

"What have you given me?"

"A human body to barrow until we get through this."

"That was Chelly that did that for me."

Chell frowned as she trekked down the steps after Glados, who stayed silent with annoyance. More walking, more steps, flat area, turn, more steps. It never ended. This was the endless nightmare that she had to live through again and again with every time that she caused something to change in the facility. Walk over this way, jump onto this conveyer belt, dodge these lasers. It nagged her horribly, too repetitive too many times. And she had not sprung a single portal, not solved a puzzle, it felt like she had done nothing, just continued on going down these same flights of stairs with these two bickering back and forth in front and behind her.

The air was silent for a moment except for the never-ending chorus of feet on metal. At least she wasn't alone with silence eating at her mind and her own haunting footsteps echoing into the nothing, "Which reminds me, Chelly." Chell sighed in response to Wheatley's thunderous voice that barked at her ears, "You want to know what I found back in that office?" She continued on, looking straight forward into the abyss of more stairs and catwalks. She heard a little bit of shuffling from Wheatley, but she ignored it, knowing that he was naturally a hyper figure.

Then something slammed into her eye, causing her to panic momentarily until she fell backwards, straight into a sitting position. She flinched and bunched up to protect the portal gun in her arms, knowing that Wheatley would soon tumble on top of her. He let out a short cry and jumped lamely over her body, colliding into Glados' back and causing her to collapse forward, her arms thrust forward to ensure that she didn't hurt the portal gun.

The scene fell still after they finished falling.

"WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND FALLING OVER?" Glados hissed and swung an elbow around to nail Wheatley right in the jaw as he started to rise up again.

"Ow! WELL WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND… AND HITTING ME?"

"I WOULDN'T HIT YOU SO MUCH IF YOU WEREN'T SO CLUMSY!"

"I WOULDN'T BE SO CLUMSY IF… IF—oh bloody 'ell—IF YOU WEREN'T SO MEAN TO ME!" He struggled to get to his feet.

"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP, YOU'RE GOING TO GET US CAUGHT!"

"WELL LOOK WHO STARTED YELLING FIRST!"

Chell had been furious when she realized that Wheatley had hit her in the eye with something, but now that fury was already gone, seemingly taken to be used by Glados for her own angry ranting. Chell was always afraid of showing anger, the curse of her silent, accepting personality. Glados was the opposite, and that was one of the things that Chell kind of liked about her.

"Just get off of me, you worthless piece of waste." She grunted as she used the railing to get up. Her thin frame wobbled as she did so. Chell felt sorry for her, she seemed so weak underneath her big lab coat. It just seemed unlike her.

"With pleasure, my Royal Cruelness." Wheatley sat back as he watched Glados get to her feet.

"If that was supposed to be a joke, it was a horrible one."

"Well… You know…" Wheatley hit his hands down on the metal and immediately started shaking them in pain, "Bloody… I forgot that hurts…"

"You're an idiot." Glados glared at him, her gold eyes burning into his blue ones, "What is that in your hand?" Her attention flickered to glare at the object that he hit Chell with.

"Oh… Yeah," He held it up, looking overly excited for his discovery. Glados squinted through the darkness at it for a moment before snagging it from his hands and bringing it to her face. Her furious eyes turned into shock before enflaming themselves with anger again.

"YOU STARTED THIS WHOLE MESS OVER A DECK OF CARDS?!" She threw it down into his face and he scrambled to try and catch it before it fell off the catwalk. Chell caught a glimpse of his panicked, sadden eyes as he got a hold of it and held it to his chest.

"I… I was thinking that perhaps… You know…" He looked up at Glados and Chell couldn't help but feel sorry for him as she gained her own footing back. "I was thinking… If we had…Time or something…Maybe Chelly and you could teach me how to play something. You know…" he sighed and looked down, "Just like old times… I… I was just trying to lighten the mood, I'm sorry…"

Glados let out a hiss of a sigh and turned away curtly, "Come on, we need to keep on moving." She murmured before starting to move again. Chell placed her hand on Wheatley's shoulder in a comforting gesture, hoping he'd read into it, then stepped around him to offer her hand front to help him up. He stared down at the deck box that he clutched in his hands, just sitting on the step where he had landed.

"I… I wish I wasn't like this… I really do…" he turned the box over, then looked up at her with a startled look on his face, "Why do I suddenly feel… I don't know, it feels like… I'm empty…?" His usually bright eyes dimmed and slipped down to the box again. Chell knelt down and placed her hand on his shoulder again. "It's… It's as if…" He put a hand on his chest, over his heart, "as if there's nothing right here…" His hand then went to his face. "I don't know what this is, what is…?"

"You are human now, humans have emotions. Now suck it up and get moving." Chell flinched and pulled her hand away from Wheatley as she felt Glados' words slither from right behind her. Apparently she had turned back.

"If you didn't notice, I was having a moment with Chell, here. I didn't ask for your input." Wheatley tightened and dragged his eyes to glare up at Glados.

Their eyes met.

The air sizzled.

Chell shrunk to half her size.

"You asked a question to someone who can't answer you. You wanted an answer, I gave it. Now let's go." With that, Glados slapped the box from Wheatley's hand and stormed off.

Wheatley didn't move from his place, just watched the box fall from the catwalk and then looked up at Glados, his eyes flaring with seriousness, "Chell has been walking down stairs since she walked in the door—or rather, fell in—can she have a break for once?"

The turn in subject was so sudden, it felt like it slapped Chell in the face. She saw the flash of surprise that surged through Glados' white figure in the dark light. She stopped, her hand tightened around the gun and she took a deep breath, "I'm glad that you're worried for her safety, but we can't stop here. It's too open. We need to get somewhere that ALBANE will have no way of reaching."

It was silent for a moment, Chell's head spun. Both of them had, at least once in their life, tried to kill her, and now they were _worried_ about her? And they were _admitting it? _Chell sat back in shock, and she felt Wheatley put a hand on her arm, making her wince. Her solemn gray eyes flickered towards his, and he nodded slowly, "It'll be alright, Chelly. We won't let anything happen to Alicia—"

The mention of her daughter's name woke the fear back up inside of her, and she jumped to her feet and stumbled after Glados.

She couldn't stop the blurring of her vision as they trekked down the metal stairs in silence.

"Did I say something wrong?" Wheatley asked himself aloud as he hauled himself to his feet, shaking his head. He adjusted the pack that Glados had given him to carry before finding his feet and steadily trying to catch up with the others.

What was wrong with him? He'd never felt like this before…Never _felt_ really. All his life, for as long as he can remember, everything was about slowing things down, about dragging things along and hiding data from others. He was programmed to do nothing more than distract and delay. Back in the day, there was never any reason to move things along or to plan or use any kind of efficiency.

When he had been attached to the GLaDOS systems by the scientists, things were a little more difficult. He was attached to something that worked at such a fast pace and with so many processes going at once, it was blinding to the mind. There was also something more that he had never encountered: There were several of them.

Programming at Aperture worked a little like the human circulatory system. Just as streams of blood run throughout the whole system and circulate back to a central point, streams of different colors made from hundreds of thousands of millions of frits of coded data made of exact programming circulate until a certain problem is controlled or eliminated. The heart is the mainframe and capillaries the different processes. He would always see himself as blue, and usually his programming was supposed to work like a human virus; grab pieces of other programming and infect it and slow it down. Cores of his kind were made to continually generate these programming viruses and be plugged into a mainframe to correct the main systems. They start with nothing but programming, doing nothing more than what they're made to do with their viruses, letting out a specific tone to show that it is working. When these viruses are continually being generated and circulating within these cores, sometimes extra data residue from them are left behind and distributed over the motherboard of the system. That's when voices come from the core, starting as a repeating line of rhythms in the shape of the data used to create the viruses, but slowly becomes a distinguished accent, words, sentences…

Until a personality is created; one that is based around the circulating of virus residue on the motherboard. A personality without joy or pain. Morals based off of logic, rather than right or wrong—like humans do. All cores work this way. Corrupted cores spin the virus faster, and therefore get their personality faster. Cores in long-time use would always eventually get the personality, and the scientists never knew what caused it nor how to fix it. When a core grew a personality, it was said to be corrupt, and therefore tossed away. Maybe it was because the scientists were egotistical, or maybe they thought it would conflict with the personality that was drained from that one poor woman to make the mainframe of GLaDOS.

Wheatley was first tested with the Aperture Super Computers, and he'd always see its programming in a bright yellow color. Then they brought him to test him with a system that had a gentle gold color. When his results caused a positive effect, they brought him to the GLaDOS mainframe. But there was something different about it. Not only was there gold streams of data, but there were red streams too. The red streams outnumbered the gold by far, and they acted hostile. When Wheatley, known at that time as IDs, was plugged into the mainframe, the red stream almost didn't let his blue stream come out of the core. His virus had nowhere else to go, so it circulated. It wasn't until the red stream doubled in size that IDs' system was forced to create a super virus that could break down the data residue that kept him closed inside himself. When it succeeded, it was immediately devoured by the red stream, but not before IDs' viruses broke out and worked faster than he had ever worked before. Infecting both the gold and red until he noticed that the gold was also being infected by the red. If he hadn't have gained the personality before then, he wouldn't have stopped infecting the gold—even though that was his directive. The hostility of the red vanished as he slowed down the stream with the viruses, however hard they were to work with.

Then, out of the blue, he was unplugged and thrown with the other corrupted cores. Apparently he had been babbling un-interpretably in a British accent. As the virus continued to circulate, his personality grew more concrete, and the name Wheatley came to light. He remembered waiting there for so long, marinating in his own IDs virus, in the dark, on a shelf, surrounded by other corrupt cores. He made friends with them, they sang songs together, made up jokes together. They were quite a hyper bunch, orphans in a way, but he grew adjusted to their quick speech and jumpy subjects. In a sense, he became one of them, but deep down he knew that they were corrupt and he was not. Or was he?

He sighed, as he followed Chell around another corner. Suddenly he saw a hand in front of his face and stopped dead, blinking. Then he realized it was only a memory, he remembered when he saw that hand reach up and touch his eye, and then another hand touched the top of the shelf and suddenly a face was in front of him, whisky black hair with a long grin and wide eyes, "Are you the Intelligence Dampening Sphere?" he had asked in a wild voice.

"Why, yes. Yes I am. But you may call me Wheatley." He had extended a handle in a handshake, "Nice to see that someone finally realized that I'm not corrupt. I knew someone would come back for me sometime. Er… I mean, I doubted myself a bit, but doesn't everyone want to be optimistic? Haha, anyway, so are you going to take me out of here or wha-AHH!" The man had grabbed him roughly by the handle and yanked him from the shelf. Without a moment to let him say goodbye to his friends, the man had bolted—or somewhat limped rapidly—to another part of the Enrichment Center and told him quickly and strictly to ensure that all of the humans stayed alive, and if there was an emergency of power levels that under no circumstances is he allowed to let any other human out except for the one in Suspension Cell C12, and to make sure that the human inside got a portal gun. Then flipped the switch to stop his viruses from generating and then plugged him into the railing and left. He never knew what happened to that guy.

By this time, Chell had gathered where they were going. By the extreme amount of downward steps they had to keep going down, she suspected that they were on their way to the old part of the facility. Immediately she thought about the story she had experienced last time that she was down there, with Cave Johnson, the gels, the mysterious story of Caroline and Cave. And the strange attitude that PotaDOS had gotten whenever she heard those two on the intercom. Besides, that was the only part of the facility that Chell knew the GLaDOS systems couldn't reach, it had been locked off, back before Caroline had become GLaDOS.

What Chell didn't understand was why Caroline's personality was so different from GLaDOS'. She had pieced together some of it when Glados told her that they used another personality, the one of that Alex character. But if ALBANE was really based off of her, then why did Wheatley turn evil when Chell plugged him into the mainframe? Better yet, why did ALBANE come out now instead of while control was shakily being transferred between Glados and Wheatley? Wouldn't that be the perfect time? Why now? Why did it seem like ALBANE was voice activated when Wheatley had revealed that Chell was a mother?

All the questions gnawed at her, she had to know these things. She had been curious about them the entire time that she was on the outside. Now that she was on the inside, she had to know. It was killing her to have all this time to think and not have an answer. It was killing her even more that the same thing that kept her from knowing the answers was also the same thing that kept her from her own daughter. Every moment that Alicia spend with ALBANE was one moment closer to getting badly hurt… Or worse… Chell stiffened a quivering breath and let it out slowly.

That was when she saw the light shining over part of the catwalk. Glados ahead of her quickened her pace, turned, and then stopped. Chell stood in her place and listened to Wheatley tread after her so when she felt his foot hit the stair behind her, she readied to catch him.

"OOF!" Wheatley collided with her and she braced herself against him, placing her elbows back to catch him. His head hit her shoulder and his collar bone hit her backpack. Not a second later, he pulled himself off immediately and stood up straight. Chell could see Glados glaring at him, and she winced at the piercing gaze. "Sorry…" He muttered.

"Sorry?" Glados narrowed her gold eyes at him. She could have sworn she saw a layering of red behind them.

"Yes, I'm sorry. I was just in deep thought."

"You're an Intelligence Dampening Sphere, you _don't_ _think_. _At all_."

Chell could almost hear his heart pound and the sweat roll down the back of his neck as his fists clenched.

Before he could think of something to come back with, Glados hissed, "Now come on, you stupid Metal Ball, we're here—"

"YOU CAN'T CALL ME THAT ANYMORE, I'M NOT MADE OF METAL!" He blurted, "Now you're going to have to call me by my real name instead of giving me nicknames. So, HA!" He panted; Chell realized that he had said that all in one breath.

Glados paused for a moment, looking into the room that she was about to walk into before turning her head and giving him a deadly smirk, "Meat ball." Then she disappeared quickly into the room with the light.

Chell blinked, then rolled her shoulders and took the steps to follow Glados onward, but her body didn't go with her; she turned to see Wheatley holding her arm back, "Thanks, Chelly." He whispered, "For now and earlier… Supporting me, I mean…" Chell narrowed her eyes in confusion. Wheatley bit his lip and then pulled her arm back and stepped up a few more stairs. Instinctively, she followed.

"Can I just, talk to you for a bit? Before we go chase after the old bag?"

"I heard that!"

"Sorry, didn't catch that, private discussion over here!" Wheatley yelled past her before pulling her a few more steps from the door and giving her a hopeful glance. Chell nodded to him, hoping that he wasn't expecting the discussion to go two ways. He nodded back to her and let go of her arm, bringing her up more stairs. Apparently he really didn't want Glados to hear what he was about to tell her.

"I don't think that we can trust her." He whispered straight out. Chell's eyes widened and she peeked back over her shoulder to make sure that Glados hadn't snuck out to listen. When she looked out, Wheatley was leaning on the railing of the catwalk and had a hand across his lips in a thoughtful pose, "You see, I was thinking over some things and I realized, there may be more ALBANE in there than we realize." Chell listened quietly as Wheatley continued, "You see, systems at Aperture work like liquid—or more plasma—of data. The data kind of goes through in cells, and those cells can be taken over and infected by viruses from another system. They work as a positive force towards the cells. How do I know this? Well, yours truly was one of the cores that made these kinds of viruses, so I know all about them." He took up a more proud stance and then glanced down the stairs to ensure they were still alone.

"I was once plugged into the GLaDOS to slow down the systems because it was processing things too fast, and the scientists feared that if it continued, the GLaDOS would use the tests to find out all the weaknesses of humans and use that to become a super-AI and take over everything. When I was working with the systems, I saw two different programs, one was gold and one was red—er…It's hard to explain, but programs work in colors and sounds by code, and these codes can only be understood by others made from or made into programming—but anyway…uh…I saw that there were both red and gold codes, and somehow, the gold was being corrupted by the red. But it wasn't supposed to be able to because…ugh, it's confusing but they were both programmed from personalities and so they can only ride beside each other and can't connect with one another, it's kind of like having a double negative, they don't like being near each other—" He put his fingers together to represent the two parts of it. Chell watched his hands, struggling to understand what he was trying to bring across. It startled her, this was something that she didn't know of. She thought that she knew how everything here worked, she squeezed the portal gun in her hands, remembering that she didn't understand how the portals worked either. Only that they worked and she needed to use them to solve things.

"It was something that the scientists didn't know, because, like I said, it can only be truly understood by those who were programmed or made from programming. Anyway… somehow the red had both cells and viruses, and they infected most of the gold. Which is completely unheard-of that a negative can suddenly switch to a positive. It's just plain impossible. I have no idea how she could have put double negatives together. So ALBANE could have made her own virus or nano-probe that took them over. I have no clue. I'm thinking that when ALBANE dumped everything that wasn't her original programming into that potato, she could have put in the cells that weren't completely taken over by her or put in those viruses or nano-probes. We have no idea. I mean, if I were some clever overlord like that, I'd probably cut down my chances of getting beat by corrupting the only group going after me with my own little agent—not to mention, put in a locator device or something." Chell felt her skin crawling and the hair on the back of her neck starting to bristle and she swallowed hard. Her mind started whirling with all the proof that what Wheatley was saying was true. She felt an itchy feeling run through her spine. If this is true, and if it happened to Caroline's personality, who's to say that the same thing didn't happen to Wheatley when she plugged him into the mainframe? She looked deep into Wheatley's eyes, trying to look for the red that he was speaking of, just as she had seen it from Glados. But through the dark stairway and his big, round glasses, she could only see the panicked blue eyes.

"So when she told us that there were two distinct personalities back in the Suspension Bay and she kept switching between them, and then when she walked off and came back she acted like they merged. I'm thinking that something happened back there…" He gave Chell a worried look, Chell just frowned back at him, trying to understand all of this that he was saying. But in a way, it made sense; and it scared Chell to death.

"If you've noticed, I've changed since we were back there. It happened when I fell on Glados and she yelled at me. I was confronted with these… 'Emotions' as she called them, and somehow, the personality I had from my core and the one still in the mind of this body... combined." He clasped his hands together and shook them worriedly, "I don't know how to explain it, but I know why she seems merged, she must have been confronted with them and I'm thinking that most of her is ALBANE left. We can't trust her; she may be leading us into a trap." He bit his lip and wrinkled his brow at her. Chell closed her eyes and took a deep breath, knowing that he was probably expecting her to say something to him. She opened her eyes and thought for a moment, then lifted her hands.

*Can you understand me when I do this?* She signed slowly. He just frowned at her.

"Yeah, that's right, you can only talk in hand signals… Uh… Maybe you could teach me sometime? Sooner rather than later would be preferable… But in the meantime I'm going to assume that you don't completely understand what I'm saying and therefore don't want to believe me." He shook his hands again and stepped down a step, then stopped and narrowed his eyes at her. "You kind of have a natural fondness towards her, so I'm guessing you don't want to believe that she's evil or something." He looked back down at his feet and continued on, "Ok… Well… Believe what you will… I'm going to… Uh… Keep my guard up and keep myself from doing anything she tells me to do and get us in trouble. Sound good? Good. I just wanted to warn you about any kind of impending doom we may be going head-long into. Nice talk, see you later." With that, he darted down the rest of the stairs and disappears into the room. Chell blinked, feeling confused. Had she said something wrong? He seemed like he was upset with her, like he'd expected her to say something. She sighed, then wandered down the stairs after him, trying to digest all of the information that he had thrown at her.

She stopped and looked up into the black mist that were the guts of the facility. Her baby was up there somewhere, and she was going to come save her with a couple of untrustworthy unknowns that could be configured from anything and could try to kill her at any moment now, and a mute test subject that was just now beginning to realize that she is the one that knows the least amount of information on the others in the group and the very thing keeping her daughter hostage. She felt a pang of fear shoot through her body. How do you win against something like that? Something that has something you couldn't live without, could be watching your every move at all times, and could possibly be controlling your plans from the inside?


End file.
